Sermon Tone Analysis

*Title:                                       ‘Go Tell It On A Mountain Part 1’*

*Type:  Devotional*

*Text:  Acts 17:16-34*

*Idea:  We are to fight ignorance with the truth of the Gospel.

Faithfully point ignorant people to Jesus and leave the rest up to God.*

*Purpose: To illustrate that God wants us to have a true and tested passion for lost people.*

*Topics: Evangelism; Reaching the Lost;  Worldviews; ignorance*

 

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*I.                   **Where do we send those who want to find God?*

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*Ignorance of God is just as bad a problem today as it was 2000 years ago.*

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·         *Play video of ‘Mr Bean’ character visiting a church for the first time.

With humor, this video displays the fears many people have in trying to find God in some traditional cultures that seem to teach more about church etiquette than about God.

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*There are different kinds of ignorance, some harmless such as ritualistic ignorance and others dangerous such as the standard of God’s holiness.*

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Did you leave your lights on?

(Text: Rom 3:23; Jas 4:8-10)

Humility, pride, confession, errors, glory of God

 

I get a kick out of the public announcements telling the audience that someone has left the lights on in their car.

I always look to see, knowing the person might face a small amount of public humility, if they get up immediately or not.

You know if humility or pride dictates their next move.

Humility gets up and makes the changes regardless of the perceived public laughter.

Pride doesn’t want anyone to notice that a mistake has been made.

However, pride results in a dead battery if changes are not made.

Scripture makes a public announcement: 'We have all fallen short of the glory of God.'  Humility publicly accepts this, pride refuses to.

Humility accepts our sins and shortcomings and calls for help, pride performs for self and masks any need for help.

Humility seeks the presence of others who have fallen short of God's glory; pride continues to parade itself as self-sufficient.

The true Church of Jesus Christ is not designed to meet the expectations of the prideful, but to strengthen those who acknowledge their need for God.

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*We are among the group that has stood up and publicly confessed that God’s standard of holiness has not been met in our lives.*

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*Nonetheless, where do we send those who want to find God?*

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*II.

**God is looking to speak with those who are looking to hear.*

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*How does God look for you?

First, God looks for things and situations in our life to initiate contact with you.

Second, God sends a Paul into our lives to direct you in those situations.*

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(show Map of Paul’s Second Missionary Journey)

 

Ac 17:16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

Paul is waiting, and while waiting he takes the time to assess the spiritual state of Athens.

Paul goes from a spiritual high to a low, emotionally, because of the cities idol worship.

Do you ever assess the likes of people when you are waiting for them inside their house?

You know, looking at the pictures on the wall, or maybe the books on their shelves.

Last week, I saw a car last week with the bumper sticker that said,

‘On the eighth day God created Bag Pipes.’

What would you deduce about the spiritual state of that person based on that bumper sticker?

·         He is Scottish

·         He loves the Bagpipes

·         He doesn’t believe in literal 7 days of creation?

·         God loves Bagpipes more than humanity?

There is a lot of ignorance that exists about the nature and character of God and God no longer accepts this ignorance.

Ac 17:17 So he reasoned in the synagogue d  with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.

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*The context in which Paul arrives at Athens has striking similarities to our modern day context.*

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Things have a way of working in cycles.

Philosophies and ideas that existed 2 thousand years ago, exist today.

Ac 17:18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him.

Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.”

They said this because Paul was preaching the good news e  about Jesus and the resurrection.

f   

What is Paul walking into? 4 schools of thought:

 

Matter is co-eternal with Spirit.

(Stoics) Today Pantheism~/New Age

Matter is evil and Spirit is good.

(Gnositcs) Today Scientology~/New Age

Matter is cause of random acts (epicureans) Today Self-help books

It doesn’t matter.

(rest of them)

 

 Epicureans

(They wanted to be relieved from all things that threatened their peace and contentment.

They believed that any negative emotion is bad.)

\\ The Epicureans, though believing in the gods as “blessed and immortal beings,” tended to live as though religion were irrelevant.

They explained everything in terms of natural forces, and believed everything to be composed of “atoms” (Diogenes Laertius /Vit./

10.38–44).

The random collision of atoms was the cause of every natural event, and chance predominated.

They also upheld the validity of free will in opposition to fatalism.

The goal of philosophy was to free people from all fears or trouble, enabling tranquility of mind to flourish everyday[1]

Perhaps today, we use pills and substances to rid ourselves of these negative things.

Stoics

(Stoic tried to have no emotion and would accept God’s fate.

Prayer was irrelevant)

‘Stoicism could be characterized as a religious materialism which was pantheistic.

The Stoa rejected “immaterial substance”;  The life according to nature included the thought of a life lived rationally, in concord with the rational-divine part of human nature and in acceptance of one’s fate from God (which was inevitable anyway).

This was believed to lead to a virtuous life, and virtue was the only absolute “good” which the Stoa recognized.

All else, including health, wealth, strength, beauty, even life or death (/see/ Life and Death), was termed “indifferent” (/adiaphora/) because, it was said, such things made no difference to the wise person’s virtue or happiness.

The ideal Stoic life was a highly individualistic, self-centered pursuit of “virtue” in complete independence from any external supports.’[2]

A stoic would face danger and persevere for the sake of the gaining the virtue of being one who perseveres.

Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, g  where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching h  is that you are presenting?

Ac 17:20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”

Ac 17:21 (All the Athenians i  and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

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*Today, we do not have to go to Athens, Greece to discover these views of God, you just need to go to local Tim Horton’s donut shop, the local hockey rink or a Chapter’s book store to find these ideas.

Rick Warren presents six worldviews that are held by many people today.

Maybe you have heard some one say:*

*1.

The one with the most toys wins.*

\\ This is the worldview of materialism – and it can be summed up with one world, more.

Materialism says that the only thing that really matters in life is acquiring things.

Those who subscribe to this worldview live mostly to collect things.

*The Bible’s answer:* Jesus said this in Luke 12, “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (NIV).

He tells us not to judge our lives by how much we’ve got.

The greatest things in life aren’t things.

*2.

I’ve got to think of me first.*

\\ We live in a “me first,” serve-yourself world that says it’s all about you.

Commercial slogans cater to this viewpoint.

Slogans like, “have it your way,” “we do it all for you,” “obey your thirst,” “you’ve got to think of what’s best for yourself,” and “You deserve it.”

For the last 40 years, the Baby Boomer generation has been called the “Me Generation.”

This “me first” idea has infected entire communities.

It has torn up marriages (“I don’t care how divorce impacts my spouse or children; it’s all about me”), destroyed workplaces (“I don’t care how my laziness impacts my co-workers; it’s all about me”) and even ruined churches (“Serve my needs first, forget about the lost”).