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Welcome to our look together at Acts chapter 17. This is day four of week four
of our look together through the book of Acts. Remember, we're going a chapter a
day, just getting an overview of what God's doing in Acts.

And in this overview, we've seen the new church begin. We've seen how Paul began
as Saul, persecuting the church has been brought to faith in Christ. Incredible
change.

We've seen how Peter has been brought to see that the Gentiles must be brought
in. And then the first missionary journey. And people hear the good news.

And now we're in the midst of this second missionary journey, Paul and Silas and
others along with them, Timothy. In chapter 17, we see them going to
Thessalonica and then to Berea. And then I want to focus today.

Then they go to Athens, where something very different happens in the life of
Paul. There's not much response. There's a lot of talk.

Listen to what happens in Acts chapter 17, beginning in verse 15 and going down
through verse 21. The men who had escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then
left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.
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 synagogue with the Jews and the 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 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 about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they
took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him,
"May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?

You're bringing some strange ideas to our ears and we want to know what they
mean. All the Athenians and the foreigners who live there spent their time doing
nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. " That's what
happened to Paul as he walked into this place called Athens and he begins to
tell them about this new teaching.

Have you ever asked yourself what makes Christianity different? What makes the
teaching of Jesus different from any other religion in the world? Acts 17, 19,
these in Athens immediately recognized it.

It's a new teaching. What makes it so new? Paul is faced with these questions in
Athens.

What makes the difference? What makes it different? And he lays out some
answers.

He lays out some answers for you and I that can help you and I to remember what
is different about the teaching of Jesus Christ. What's different? The claim
that you can know God personally.

Jesus called God Father. And what's different about the teaching of Christ? You
and I can have a personal relationship with our Father in heaven.

In other religions, God is the creator. God is to be feared. But in the teaching
of Jesus Christ, the truth of who God is, God is to be reverenced in a deep,
close, personal relationship with him.

In verse 22, here's what Paul says, verse 22 and 23, Paul stood up in the
meeting of the Areopagus and he said, "Men of Athens, I see that in every way
you are very religious. For I've walked around and looked carefully at your
objects of worship. I even found an altar with this inscription to an unknown
God.

What you worship as something unknown, I'm going to proclaim to you. " That's
the new teaching. Something unknown, now I'm going to proclaim it to you.

And as you walk through these verses, Paul powerfully shows how much of the
world worships God in ways that do not connect with who he really is, have no
relationship with him. But in Christ, we can worship him as somebody who we
know. There are so many different ways that we try to know God.

And Paul talks about them here. In verse 24, he talks about those who worship a
God who dwells in temples. In verse 24, "The God who made this world and
everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples
built by hands.

" You can't relegate God to a building, a temple. We don't build a temple to put
God in that temple. We build a temple.

God asked them to build some temples in Old Testament times, tabernacles, to
recognize the presence of God in all of creation. And now we don't build temples
at all anymore because he's made us a temple of his spirit. That's a different
way of thinking.

You cannot build a temple, a church, a synagogue, a mosque, any kind of building
in which you can place God. That's where God lives. No, he lives in human
hearts.

That's a new teaching. In verse 25, Paul says this, "And by the way," he says,
"he is not served by human hands as if he needed anything because he himself
gives all men life and breath and everything else. " Paul reminds those in
Athens that he doesn't need us, we need him.

If your God needs you, there's something wrong with your God. By the way, with
the temple, if you have to go visit your God somewhere, there's something wrong
with your God. Paul reminds them here that God is a God who wants to know us
personally, who is with us everywhere that we are.

In verse 29, he talks about idols and he says, "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 man's design and skill. We don't fashion God. God
fashions us.

" He's just reminding them here of the truth about who God really is. You don't
visit God. God is the one who came and visited us in Jesus Christ.

You don't have a God who serves you, you're the one who serves God. By the way,
he says here, if your God is moldable, if you can put him on a shelf somewhere,
you've got the wrong God. God is the creator of the universe who wants to know
you personally.

That's what's different about the message of Jesus Christ. How do you know him
personally? Paul talks about it in these verses as he's talking to them.

He calls him Lord, he calls him creator, he calls him sustainer. That's how you
know him. As these Athenians did, if all you believe is that God exists, you can
easily ignore him.

He exists somewhere, but I can ignore him. As some people believe, all you
believe is that God has power, then you can fear him. But once you realize that
God is a God of love, then you have to know him to become like him.

That's what's different about the teaching of Jesus Christ. It claims that God
can be known personally. What's different about the teaching of Jesus Christ?

It calls on men to repent, to turn around. It calls in verse 30 on this. In the
past, Paul says God overlooks such ignorance, but now he commands all people
everywhere to repent.

It's not a matter of just thinking differently, it's a matter of living
differently. It's not a matter of returning to the traditions of the past, it's
a matter of living out the life of God in your life today. Decide to be
different.

How? By trusting in what only he can do. Most of the world today thinks that if
you decide to be different, you do that by pulling yourself up by your own
spiritual bootstraps.

You take charge of your life. That's how you become different. Jesus Christ, the
teaching of Jesus Christ, this new teaching says not at all.

Repent. Change your mind. As we've talked about earlier in our study of the book
of Acts, for some people this has become a negative word because it's gotten
negative connotations.

But it's a beautiful word. It means you change your mind. You have personal
sorrow of the direction you've taken, but because of that, you make a U-turn and
you go in a different direction.

You're not just sad about the past, you make a U-turn and you head towards God's
future. Jesus Christ comes into your heart. He changes your mind, he changes
your life, he changes your direction.

That's what's new about this teaching. The claim that God can be known
personally, the call that we must repent. There's a third thing that's new about
this teaching.

It centers on the resurrection. He has given proof of this to all men by raising
him, Jesus, from the dead. When they heard about this resurrection from the
dead, some of them listening to Paul sneered, but others said, "We want to hear
you again on this subject.

" At that, Paul left the council. A few men became followers of Paul and
believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman
named Damaris and a number of others.

This Areopagus that we've been talking about, it was a place up on the hill in
Athens where they went to talk about all the ideas of the day. And Paul at the
end comes to an idea they cannot accept, that most of them reject. A few of
them, they have their interests tickled and they think, "Oh, let's hear about
this again.

" A very few believe, but most just reject. What is it that sets the truth of
Jesus Christ apart more than any other truth? It's the empty tomb, it's the
resurrection.

You look at every other religion in the world, you look at every other leader in
the world, you look at Buddha, you look at Mohammed, the tomb is not empty. You
look at Abraham, you look at Moses, if we knew where their tomb was, it is not
empty. You look at even great political leaders, Washington or Lenin, you look
at great philosophical leaders, Plato or Socrates, all those tombs are occupied.

On the outside of that tomb, if you could go to it today and there was a sign on
it, it would say, "Occupied. " Only the tomb of Jesus Christ is empty. Only the
tomb of Jesus Christ has a great big "not here.

" He is not here, he has risen. Why? Because the truth of Christ is not a
religion, it's not a philosophy, it's not a way of life, it is a person, Jesus
Christ.

It is a relationship with that person. He is the way and the truth and the life.
Not an idea is the way, the truth and the life, Jesus is the way, the truth and
the life.

Those in Athens, when Paul got to this, that's what they rejected because they
knew if they accepted this, it would change everything. So how about me, how
about you? Have you accepted it yet in your life?

This truth that only in Jesus can you find the way, the truth and the life. I
know you may love philosophy, God doesn't want you to stop thinking. I know you
may love some things in your traditions and God does not want you to let go of
everything in your traditions.

Those family events that you grew up with, so don't let those thoughts invade
your mind right now. The truth is, there is truth in Jesus Christ you cannot
find anywhere else. The truth that you can know God personally.

The truth that your life can turn around. The truth of an empty tomb and the new
life that he can give you. Would you accept that truth right now?

Just say to Jesus Christ, I accept the truth of who you are. It's not a
religion, it's not a philosophy, it's not a way of life, it's you Jesus. I
accept the truth of the empty tomb and all that that means for my life.

The forgiveness that you want to give, the life that you want to lead me in. I
accept the truth of who you are. In Jesus' name, I refresh my acceptance of this
truth, I make my first commitment of the acceptance of this truth.

In Jesus' name, Amen. We're going to see the Apostle Paul hit a real wall in his
life of faith.