Jesus and the Resurrection

It is a joy to gather with you every Sunday, but especially this Sunday as we are specifically remembering the resurrection. And what we're going to be saying in Acts, if you're new to us, new with us, we're glad you are here. We're walking through the book of Acts as our normal practice is to walk through books of the Bible. And it just so happened that God blessed us that Acts 17 is a passage that speaks of the resurrection. So we get to focus on what Easter is about, the risen Savior, and continue in our study this morning. As we do so, I want to ask you the question, what does it mean to live? Or a way we oftentimes phrase it in our culture, what is the good life? Take a moment and come up with a picture or the words that would help define the good life for you. Are you in your bed taking a nap? Are you at a grand feast? Are you on the beach? What does it look like? Is the good life just having lots of stuff and no debt? Is the good life having lots of friends or a large family? What is the good life? This is an important question that we all should actually be asking. What kind of things do you aspire to have or to do for the good life? One of the things you can look at, what do you envy in others? That's where you've placed your hope in, a good life. Really what we're gonna ask this morning is what is God's role in the good life? What is God's role? Some may think God's role is to give me all the things that I want so that I can have the good life. No, that's not God, that's Santa Claus. God's role is much, much deeper and more important. It's more true. If we're to ask what God's role is in a good life, and I think we'll see this in the text, God's role in a good life is that He gives us life. He is the good giver of every good and perfect gift, but He's the life giver. He's the very source of life. He's the author of life, and everything depends upon Him. And secondly, He gives us the best thing. He gives us the best thing, and the best thing God gives us is God Himself. That's the best thing. God actually gives Himself over to us so that we can know Him in His glory, His beauty, His honor, His power, His love. This morning, we're gonna think about the good life that God gives us by giving us himself, and we're gonna see that the resurrection is central to that life. Because Christ rose again to new life, to give us that life. Turn with me to Acts 17 if you're not there. It's on page 926 of your Pew Bible, if you're using one, and if you do not have a Bible, or you just like that particular Bible, take it and read it. As you've already heard, the text read, I'm gonna walk through and just ask three questions as we walk through the text. One, who needs to hear about the resurrection? Okay, we see in verses 16 to 21, Paul is basically talking, or Luke is talking about the audience. It's the who. And then why the resurrection is important. And here we see Paul's message, 22 to 31. And then finally, how was the message responded to? How was the resurrection responded to? And that's 32 through 33. So who needs to hear about the resurrection? Why is a resurrection important? And how do we respond? First, the who. And let me just answer this very quickly. Who needs to hear about the resurrection? Everyone. If you've been with us through Acts, you've seen that the Gospel's going out to male and female, Jew and Gentile, every different kind of person, free and slave, the rich, the poor. The Gospel's going out to everybody, and what we see today, the Gospel is even for philosophers. It's for philosophers too, and as we think about this, I actually want to challenge us all to be philosophers today. Now, most of you probably just rolled your hearts, if not the hearts of your eyes, you know, the rolls your eyes, maybe the eyes of your heart here. I don't be a philosopher. That's only because we think of a philosopher in a derogatory way, kind of like what Luke describes in verse 21. When we think of a philosopher, we normally think of someone who sits around all day doing nothing, except telling or hearing something new. Emphasis on the word doing nothing. That's not a true philosopher. A true philosopher wants to figure out what is life, what is the meaning of life so that I can actually live that life. A true philosopher wants to know what is true happiness so that I can pursue it. Philosophers are very active. So we need to guard ourselves from thinking that they're a philosopher, someone who does nothing, No, it's someone whose pursuit, whose destiny and focus is on pursuing that blessed life. As you heard, the story is now in Athens. Luke is recording Paul's second missionary journey. We've seen him go to Thessalonica, where some Jews who were jealous, they brought in a riot. They drove Paul out. And then in Berea, the Bereans, they received the word, they studied the word, they received the gospel, and then those same Jews from Thessalonica, they came to Berea and drove Paul out. And now Paul, he's gone to Athens. This wasn't planned, it was a way of escape. And while Paul is there, he's walking around the city, and his spirit is provoked. because he saw that this city was full of idols, verse 16. One author, contemporary with Luke, described Athens as having more idols than human beings. They had idols everywhere. And this is important for how Paul is going to organize and specifically talk about the gospel in a moment. And so he's provoked, and so he begins to talk about Jesus. and the resurrection, and these folks are so confused because they're not Jews, most of them. The people they're talking about, they don't have that background of the Holy Scriptures, they're pagans, they're polytheists, and so they don't understand Jesus and the resurrection. They even seem to be thinking there's two different gods there. We see two in the group, the Epicureans and the Stoics. Epicureans are best known by that declaration, let us eat, Drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. They did not believe in a God. They did not believe in a judgment. They believed that right now is the time to live and just enjoy the pleasure. They actually weren't sensual people. They just believed that the world was only made up of things of the natural material. And so the goal was to enjoy pleasure in this natural world as much as possible. Stoics, they were not atheists, but they did not believe in a close God. They were more contemplative. One author compared these to Hugh Hefner being the Epicurean and Ted Turner being the Stoic. I don't think that really fits. I think that's an oversimplification. Talking to one of the elders about it, he said, well really the Epicurean is Iron Man and the Stoic is Captain America. You can decide if that's helpful for you. But the response is, they say he's a babbler. He's babbling on, and they're not understanding really what he's saying, so they come and speak to us. And so here we're gonna focus most of our time, why is a resurrection important, beginning in verse 22. Why is a resurrection important? Paul stands in the midst of the Areopagus, I'm having a difficult time with my words today, and speaks, men of Athens. He first speaks to them and appeals to something he observes. I see you're very religious. He tries to make a connection with them. He tries to get a common bond with them. He notices you're very religious. You even have a God, an idol to an unknown God. He's appealing to them and their desire to worship. And much of this passage, and what he's going to talk about, it's about worship. You are very religious. You have idols everywhere. even have one to an unknown God. And Paul says, today I'm going to tell you the one true God who you can know by name. Now I want you to look at this appeal, and I want you to first put your eyes here in verse 26. This is the center of the message that Luke has recorded. I don't think this is the full message. This is a condensed version of whatever Paul said. But notice he says, from one man, every nation of mankind who lives on the face of the earth, God made. He determined their allotted periods and the boundaries for their dwelling place. He's sovereign over who's living where and what's happening when. Look at verse 27, that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. He's perceived they're very religious. He sees idols everywhere, and he's wanting to know God, His purpose is for you to seek Him and to find Him. Now, in order for Paul to help them know how to seek and to find the one true God, he has to correct their false understanding of God. Notice what he does before verse 26. He says, God, He's not like your gods. He doesn't need you. He doesn't need to live in your temple for you to serve with food. He's not hungry. He's not like you And then down to verse 29 He's not made out of the stuff that he gave you to make other stuff out of You're made in his image. You don't make him out of your imagination Paul has to correct their under misunderstanding of who God is and how to approach him in order to then Lead them to true worship in Jesus Christ Now let me pause here and simply say, if you're not a Christian, this passage is for you. If you're not a Christian, I wanna say, you were designed by God to be a worshiper. You're hardwired for worship. And you may not have idols everywhere, but I want to assure you, you are a worshiper. The problem with us is when we're not actually worshiping the one true God, following His directions for worship, we have self-directed worship. And that's usually a very selfish kind of worship. We love and are committed to and sacrifice for the things that God has given us, rather than the one God who is worthy of worship. So this morning, I pray you'll hear a correction. Or rather, a redirection. that you can worship the one true God. You can know Him and His great love for you. If you're a Christian this morning, I hope you will hear and remember the resurrection happened not just to give you a get out of hell ticket for free, no. It's so that you might actually know God and love Him and know that Jesus Christ is the right hand of the Father so that you can worship Him. The resurrection is about worship. Now let's look at these passages a little more closely. The focus here is on knowing the one God who created all. He's not served in temples. He's not made of an image. But let's go back to verse 26 and 28. He made from one man every nation. Okay, we can learn something about God here. He's the creator. He's created all humanity. And here, Paul is referring to Adam. Out of one man, all human beings exist. And then we see the sovereignty of God. He's allotted periods and boundaries. He's a sovereign God who has a control of nations and boundaries and wars and you. He's sovereign in caring for you. We see that great purpose. God created us that, it's very important, verse 27, that we should seek Him. God's not some distant God playing hide and seek. God's not some distant God that wants to be far from you and distant. No, God designed us to know Him and His love. God designed us to be part of His life. His purpose in creating us is that we would seek Him, that we would enjoy Him. This is amazing for us who get so enamored and we get so enticed by the glitter of this world. The one true glorious God says, come and know me. We're very distracted by the things of this world. The God who is holy, mighty, and awesome. He's not dependent on the creation. He's the great creator. This is good news. He says, come, so you can know me. I'm near. Look where he says, I'm near to you. You can find me. Now this is the natural question that everyone should be asking right now. How does that work? I've prayed. I've tried. God still feels distant. What's wrong with me that I can't No God. Well, maybe this isn't true. Why do I not always feel near to God? Why have I tried over and over again, but not ever felt like I'm close? I believe Paul actually gives an answer to why we don't feel near to God. And it's because of our idolatry. I believe Paul focuses on this as the primary problem. Again, let's go back to what he says before verse 26. Go to verse 24. God made the world and everything in it being Lord of heaven and earth. That's where God exists. Heaven and earth. He does not live in temples made by man. He's not so small that you get to control him and feed him by putting him in your temple and serving him with your human hands. He doesn't need anything from you. See, our idolatry, we want to control God. We want to make Him smaller. We want to make Him like us. This reminds me of the Tower of Babel, in terms of just how silly it is. This is Genesis 11, if you're not familiar with the story. The Tower of Babel was when all men decided, let's make a tower up to God. And as they're building this tower, all humans are united. They're building this grand tower, and God has to come down to see it. because he's so high and exalted. To think you've got to build a temple up to God that you can actually accomplish that, it's just silly. And we would laugh if it weren't so sad because of how sinful it is. To think we're going to build God a temple because he needs somewhere to live. When we can go out at night and see the stars and the moon. and the glory of the creation, and where he lives is so much greater. How is he gonna live in our temple? And how is it that he would need our food? In our rebellion, we think God needs us. Or worse, we think that he doesn't really need us, but if we just give him stuff that'll make him happy, he'll give us the things that make us happy. Now God's not dependent like us. He's not fickle like us. He's not needy. We pretend that we have some kind of control over God. That's idolatry. That's corrupt. Look at verse 29. He corrects their idolatry a second time. Being then God's offspring, and this declaring, you're made in his image. We're all from that one man God created. But that's not enough to know him. We ought not to think that a divine being is like gold or silver or stone. He's not made out of the stuff that He created. An image formed by the art and imagination of man. We are made in His image. We don't get to use our imagination with God. We get to receive His instruction on who He is and what He said. We don't get to pretend to make God somebody He's not. This is bizarre behavior. For a creature to say, you know what, I really like the God who is like this, and I'm going to form this image out of what he's given me, and then I'm going to worship that. That's bizarre. Not a great analogy, but the best thing to come up with is how bizarre this is. It would be like a child being able to decide what their parents should be like from their own imagination. Now, in my family, if that were reality, we would eat a sweet frog every meal. We would go to the playground every day. We would just do fun things. There would be no vegetables. It would just be sweets and candy and ice cream and it would be a lot of fun. Actually, probably not. If a child got to decide what kind of parents they would have, think about what kind of society we would have. No one would take their responsibilities seriously. There wouldn't be a sweet frog who's gonna work it. I say that in that if God actually were like what we thought of in our imagination, it would be chaos. Praise God. He's nothing like what we want to imagine Him in our imagination. He is like what He said He is. He's good. He's right. He's just. He's orderly. He's beautiful. He's glorious. If He were like what we could imagine, it would be horrible. This is why Paul sang. He's not in your temples. He's not made with your hands. He is in the heavens and the earth. We don't get to pretend who he is. So what have we learned about God so far? One, he created us. Two, he gave us life. Three, he desired us to seek him and to know him. Now I've gotta challenge us today about our idolatry. And you may say, well, I'm not an idolater. I don't have images. I don't even have a temple. Okay, you're not that kind of idolater. But we are all idolaters. We all imagine a God who is not there to make him more like ourselves, to make him do what we wish he would do. We're idolaters when we do not acknowledge our dependence upon him as a creator. We are idolaters when we do not honor Him or give Him thanks for all that He gives us. We're idolaters when we seek after our sinful desires rather than His glory. See, our idolatry can be in our self-sufficiency or our pretending to be self-sufficient. Not acknowledging Him as the one God who gives us the true comfort and well-being and knowing He is the greatest thing for us in Himself. We're idolaters when we don't acknowledge He regularly sustains us with all of life. Secondly, we're idolaters when we think He should give us better than He has. When we think we've earned or deserved all that He has given us. See, this is the real twistedness of our sin, is that we take God's good gifts And then we twist them to do something with them that God didn't intend, but that really ruins the whole purpose of the gift to begin with. Let me give an example that is very prevalent in our culture. God has given us the gift of sex. Our culture glorifies sex. You can see it everywhere. You can't watch a game on TV without having pictures and images that glorify sex. Our culture treats it like a god. We have our images. They're everywhere. There's a ceremony actions, and there's deifying it. And we've got to be honest as Christians and make it very clear, sex is a wonderful gift from God. It is designed to bind a husband and a wife together in a holy matrimony. It's a sacred gift to be enjoyed for His glory. It's a sacred gift to be enjoyed for His glory. And we do that when we do so according to Christ. But we treat it like it's our right to experiment with it. That this purpose is our own pleasure only. You realize when we take that gift and we treat it like our culture teaches us to, we treat other human beings made in the image of God as tools without honor or dignity. There is no victimless crime in this. Sex is a good gift from God, and we twist it, and we corrupt it, and we actually keep ourselves from enjoying it the way God designed it to be enjoyed. We're idolaters. We love His gifts more than Him, and then we mess them up. We worship our accomplishments, our feelings, our comfort, our pleasure, our team, our nation. Anything good, we can take it and mess it up. The sad aspect of our sin is when we actually worship the God of our imagination in our own way, we're settling for less. That's what's so sad. We are choosing to settle for less when we choose the God of our own imagination. Now here's the good news that we get to hear on Easter Sunday. Jesus rose from the dead so that we can stop the foolishness of our idolatry We can repent of this twisted way of living and we can think about who God is according to what he said And we can know God in his glory This is why the resurrection is important. It's necessary Jesus Christ came to die on our behalf for all of our sins that we've committed against God and We've not thanked Him. We've not glorified Him. We have not taken His gifts and used them for His glory. We've been selfish. Jesus Christ came to die in our place so that the wrath of God against our sin will be satisfied in Him. And then He rose again to give us a new life, to lead us to a new life where we get to worship God. See, Jesus Christ rose from the dead and then He's exalted to the right hand of the Father so that He can draw us near. So that God is no longer distant. But now the Holy Spirit resides inside of us and we get to go bold in the name of Christ to the Father with confidence. Again, He's not a get out of hell ticket. No, He's a come and know me and worship me Savior who's risen so that we can know the glory of God. See, in that morning 2,000 years ago, the rock was rolled away, the tomb was empty, Jesus was risen. He conquered death. He freed us from the power of sin. He took away the guilt of sin. He gave us new life to enjoy. And that is how we, the way we enjoy it is by actually enjoying God himself. Notice what Paul says. Look at verse 30. The times of ignorance God overlooked. That is, your ignorance is not going to be anymore. The God who understands the boundaries and the places, He has sent me to come tell you about the one true God. I'm proclaiming Him to you now. But now He commands all people everywhere to repent. Because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed. And of this He has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. He calls us to repent. We cannot see the true God unless we take our eyes off of our false gods. We cannot turn to see the life that God gives us until we stop looking at the destructive loves and the idols that we have in our lives. There's a repentance that's necessary. There's a change of direction. And here's the assurance. There will be a judgment. And that judgment is assured in that Jesus Christ, He is risen from the dead. He's been raised. He will be the one who judges on that last day. Here's the reality of what Paul's talking about. When we die, we will stand before Jesus Christ. And He will know our sin better than you know it right now. All of our sin will be right before us, and we'll be speechless. There's nothing we can say. There's no excuses. Because it's all gonna be so obvious. There's only two things to be said that day. Jesus Christ would declare you judged for your sin. Or Jesus Christ would declare he has been judged for your sin. You either can continue to reject Jesus and continue living a life of idolatry and you will be judged for your sin. And it's greater than you can imagine. For on that day, Jesus Christ will say, I died on your behalf. I, Rose again, have given you life. Come and see with new eyes and hear with new ears. Behold the great glory of your Father who loves you. That's the last day of judgment. As we read earlier in 1 Corinthians 15, when that trump sounds. For those not in Christ, it is a terrifying day when Christ comes back. But for those in Christ, that trumpet, it's a glorious sound that reminds us. We're going to be renewed. We're going to see God. Christ is risen. If we see this response, verse 32, they heard the resurrection, they heard the gospel, some mocked. The gospel is fallacious, according to some people. The Gentiles, they mocked the cross, they mocked the resurrection. But others said, we will hear again. Now, I want you to realize that the spiritual status of those who mock and the spiritual status who put off the decision of verse 32 are the same. Being interested in the gospel doesn't save you. Believing the gospel is the only way to be saved. Saying, I want to continue to hear this, that's good, but you actually have to come to the point where you're going to believe. Verse 34, but some men joined and believed. And he names them. We hear the gospel is effective. As we think about application, I want to just meditate upon the resurrection and what it reminds us of. First, the resurrection reminds us that we get to worship the living God. He's the God who gives life. He is the God who has life. He's the God who's given us new life. What's amazing with this God is He calls us out to be born again. To be regenerated. And we can do that, He can do that because Christ is risen and He now gives us His life. It's eternal. As Paul says in this passage, quoting one of the pagans, in Him we live and move and have our being. He gives us this life. It is meant for His glory. Secondly, the resurrection reminds us that we get to worship the righteous God. Righteous, He's right. He's just. He's always correct. He's perfect. He's faithful. He will be the just judge of our sins. He's the just judge of all the sins of the world. Unless we believe in Jesus Christ and His being judged for us, we will be judged. He is the righteous God. Third, the resurrection reminds us that we get to worship the merciful God. He could have left us in our sin, but He chose to let His grace abound where our sin abounds. He chose to commit Himself to us, to love us. He's never found us lovely. That's the beautiful thing about God. He never committed Himself to us because He thought we were so great. He decided simply to put His love upon us. The good news, God doesn't love us because of who we are. God has always loved us because of who He is. That's the beauty of the gospel. That mercy never changes. Once He's committed to showing mercy, He keeps His promise and is merciful. Fourth, the resurrection reminds us that we need to repent to worship. Our hearts are idol factories, one theologian said. where we're constantly taking the good gifts of God and twisting them and corrupting them, and this is why we need to be very careful in studying God's Word and receiving, this is who God says He is, and this is how God says to worship Him. We also need people like Paul in our life, who are going to make observations about us to help us see, here's your idols. Is there someone in your life that's actually going to come up to you and you've given them freedom to say, here's what I'm observing. Here are the idols. We need to be constantly challenged to be repenting, to be more faithful in worship. And finally, the resurrection reminds us that we get to worship God together. God's gospel at one level is the most exclusive offering. It is only for those Christ died for and who believe in Christ. It is an exclusive privilege to worship God. Christ, the Son of God, had to purchase you with His own blood in order for you to worship Him. It's exclusive. But then it's amazing inclusive. Male, female, Jew, Gentile, slave, free. There's no kind of social status that keeps you from knowing and worshiping God. It's only your sin. And by believing in Jesus Christ, you can come to know Him. who died for your sins, who rose again, and is truly worthy of worship. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that on this Easter morning, we can meditate upon who you are, the great God of life, the God who gives new life, the God who has risen Christ to life. Forgive us, Lord, because we have let our hearts grow wild with idolatry. We love the things you give us too much and love you too little. And we thank you in the name of Jesus Christ that your grace abounds where our sin abounds. I pray that you would correct us, free us, transform us to be more faithful so that we can see who you are in your glory and beauty and power. In Jesus' holy name we pray, amen.