Hey Ben, you may be seated. I don't know about anyone else here, but I need to be reminded of that truth that Christ will hold me fast. I need to be reminded of that quite often. How about you? Okay, there's just a few of us, a few of you and me need to be held fast by the Lord. And he certainly does that. If you have your Bibles, may open them to Acts chapter 17, verses 16 through 29. Acts 17, 16 to 29, it was the passage of Scripture that was read to us earlier. And before we jump into what we're going to be talking about this morning, I promise I'm going to stop eventually mentioning this, but as you entered this morning, again, there's the sermon notes. These are primarily for children, for your kids, but if as an adult you would like to have one and fill in the blanks, I understand that completely. Don't be embarrassed to go grab one if you would like one. By the way, can I say something just off the record really quickly? If I step over here, does that mean it's off the record? I think that's how it works. I just want to say a big thank you to the parents who have brought your children in here, and you have endured your children's difficulty of making it through the service. It's not easy. I know that. Whether they're five years old, 10 years old, 15, or even 30 years old, it can be difficult to corral your kids here in the service. Thank you for doing that. That will always reap godly biblical benefits. So thank you so much for that. And it doesn't bother me if your kids scream out in the service. Don't encourage them to do that. But it doesn't bother me if that's what they do. And I don't think it bothers anyone around us. We're all here for the Lord's glory. Here in Acts chapter 17, again, the passage was read to us earlier, but I want to start out the sermon a little bit differently than maybe what we normally do, but I always try to get us thinking in a specific direction, so let me try this in a little bit of a different way here this morning. It's not good to dwell on our sin too much. right? It is not godly, it is not glorifying to the Lord for us to sit and dwell on our sin and bemoan and just hate ourselves for what and who we've been and what we've done. With that being said, I want you to just for a moment think about a specific situation in your life where you were guilty of sin, okay? I'm not asking you to dwell on that sin, I'm just asking you to remember in your mind a time when you sinned, and specifically a sin that had a beginning, a middle, and an end, which is to say, maybe you told a lie and you remember thinking, I need to tell this lie or I can't tell the truth, and so you remember when you lied, And then you remember having to live that lie, or live within the bounds of that lie, and then you remember when the truth came out, right? And the lie is over, and it's done with, and you have to repent of what you've done. Okay, so do you have something in mind, right? Don't tell anybody else around it. Do you have something in mind at this point of a time that you sinned? Hopefully that you don't have to think too hard to think about when you sin, because that's the same for each of us. Let me just, let me use myself as an example here. When I think back to my sins, there's many that I could choose from, but I can think back to one sin, many, it's happened many times, but the sin of gluttony. And I think that this is so perfectly going to help us out with where this text is going here. There have been many times where I have wrongly, sinfully believed, truthfully believed, that that meal or that dessert or that food is going to fill a void that I felt in my heart. That there would be a satisfaction that I would be able to be given by something that I would be able to put within my mouth. And I know this is so ridiculous to say it out loud. It's so ridiculous. But I can think back to those moments where it was sin for me to think that food could give me something that it never could give. And you know what happened? After every time I would be gluttonous, every time I'd think that food could provide something that it never possibly could, I would go to bed feeling bad about myself. Why did I eat too much? Why did I do that? I would wake up the next morning feeling bad, right? I don't feel better about myself. And then the next day, you know what happens? I'm hungry again. The thing that I thought would fill the void didn't even do it for 24 hours. Isn't that just the nature of sin? In the moment of sin, it can seem like it's going to be so good. Perhaps your sin, when you sinned, you believed this. You believed it's going to complete you in some way. It's going to fill some void that otherwise has been empty. And yet, what always happens is you end up emptier than what you were before. That is what we say is the deceitfulness of sin. And here this morning, what we're going to see here in Acts chapter 17, it's a long passage, a very long passage, jumping into this famous sermon on Mars Hill by Paul. We're going to see that Paul is going to highlight and bring to light how the Athenians were worshiping sinfully what they thought would fulfill them and satisfy them, and He is exposing their false, idolatrous, sinful worship as empty. as deceitful, never able to satisfy, never able to fulfill. Instead, only following, worshiping, and rightly serving the Creator who created us can there be lasting fulfillment. That's what we're gonna see this morning. So, as we prepare to walk through our text, I'm not gonna reread it since it's been read to us. Let me go to the Lord in prayer, and then we'll just jump right in and consider what God's word says to us. Father, thank you that the truths of your word are right here before us. As we prepare to study what these verses mean, both in the historical side of things, but infinitely more important, the spiritual application to our hearts and lives, Father, will you help us to not just hear truth and say that, that sounds good, or I'm glad somebody else is hearing this, but instead for us to say, I need this. I have idols in my heart. I am worshiping myself and I need a savior to make my heart right and to daily help me to seek and serve him. Father, will you help us to hear rightly from your word this morning? We ask this in your name, amen. The first main point of my sermon that we're going to see here at the very beginning of the text is the intrigued audience. The intrigued audience. And we see this starting in our text, starting in verse 16. You might remember our context from last Sunday. If perhaps you weren't here last Sunday, let me quickly recount it to you that Paul is on the run. He's on his second missionary journey. He had been in Thessalonica. He was kicked out, run out of Thessalonica because of these Jews who rejected the gospel. He went to Berea with these other missionaries, and those Thessalonian Jews came to Berea to kick him out of Berea as well. So he left Berea, he's now in Athens, this is the same city as modern-day Athens, and we would expect here in verse 16 that Paul would finally decide, you know what, I'm going to wait for Silas and Timothy and the rest of my compadres to come with me, I'm going to kick back, I'm going to rest, I'm going to recalibrate, and then I'll prepare to go out. We would expect that maybe he would get some afternoon tea. He would spend his time propping his feet up and saying, I've earned this. But that's certainly not what we see Paul doing when he first gets to Athens, is it? Notice how what we see here in verse 16 is that Paul is so motivated, so moved by what he sees, he can't help but work for the Lord. Notice that we're told, while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, these are the other missionaries, Silas and Timothy, His spirit was being provoked within him by what? As he was observing the city full of idols. I wonder, have you ever seen somebody else sin and it just drives you to such compassion for that person? I'm thinking maybe of a parent here, right? And I can only imagine, I only have a two-year-old, he's not really too old yet, but I can only imagine, especially a parent of teenagers, you see your children sinning in such ways, you know what they ought to do, but you can't force them to do it. Right? But you see their sin and you have such compassion, you ache for them, you hurt for them, you desire something infinitely better than they can understand in that moment. Have you ever been so motivated by seeing somebody's sin that you actually go help? What would drive Paul to do this? He has every reason to act like Athens is a vacation, right? He can rest, nothing is required of him. And yet, when he sees the idolatry of these people, he can do nothing else than go speak truth to them. Why would he do that? Because he loves them. This is what love is. Love does not sit idly by as the world and people that you know and see are going straight to hell in their sin. The love of the Christian says, I must speak the truth. Yes, with grace. Yes, with love. But I must speak the truth. If somebody tells you, I love you so much, I cannot help but tell you, there's sin in your life, don't hate that person. Realize they're probably the best friend you have. to love somebody enough to say, I cannot help but tell you there's something wrong. That's what Paul's doing here. He sees that there is this idolatrous worship. And notice how in verse 17, he goes to two places to speak to the people. Verse 17 tells us that he goes to the synagogue. filled with Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, but he doesn't stop there. And this is going to become, especially in the next chapter, this is going to be Paul's strategy. He's going to eventually go to the marketplaces. He's eventually going to say, you know what? The Jews at the synagogue, they're rejecting this message. I'm going to go to the Gentiles. This is what Paul says his ministry is to. So he goes to the marketplace, first to the Jews, then to the Gentiles. Notice how in verse 18, we're told two groups of people that he encounters and he interacts with. There are two groups of people here, two philosophical mindsets. First are the Epicureans, and secondly are the Stoics. Now, we could spend a whole lot of time talking about these individual philosophical thoughts, but let me try to give you the Cliff Notes version because I think it's going to matter when we get to Paul's sermon who is he speaking to and how similar are we to these people. So, let me just say a couple of thoughts on the Epicureans and this philosophical mindset of which they had. By and large, Epicureans, especially here in this first century, their thoughts were that God is unknowable and therefore happiness is through worshiping or this idea of pursuing simplicity in life. This is the idea of the Epicureans. God is unknowable. They were deistic, right? This idea that there is a God, but he's somewhere so far out there he doesn't really interact or care about what happens here. He's unknowable. He's there, but who knows him? He doesn't care about us, we barely care about him. He's unknowable, but then notice this. You can achieve happiness, you can achieve peace, you can achieve fulfillment, through worshiping the simplicity of life. They also put knowledge into this as well. But as long as you're living a simple life, as long as you're pursuing knowledge, you will be peaceful and you will be happy. You will be happy. This is what the original Epicurean, Epicurus, this is what he said. He said, a cheerful poverty is an honorable state. That's the idea here. You will be fulfilled as long as you do all things in moderation and learn and grow as you do it. By the way, do you see how that's still in our culture today? This didn't die in the first century. And especially with the Stoics, you're going to see this did not die in the first century. We see this in our world as well. That's the Epicureans. The second group of Grecian philosophy are called the Stoics. You see this before you in your text. Well, who were the Stoics? By and large, they rejected God and therefore believed that happiness is through worshiping, again, this idea of pursuing knowledge, logic, and discipline. The Stoics believed that there was no God, right? How ridiculous to believe in a deity greater than yourself when you are the greatest of all things. They believed, they worshiped, they pursued knowledge, logic, and discipline. And because they did not believe in some God out there, they believed in simply a God here. They're pantheistic. There's a God within the trees. There's a God within the air. Everything around you is a God. Of course, we see this in our modern day as well, don't we? Have you ever heard somebody talk about Mother Earth? Have you ever said that God is in the air? Have you ever heard that God is love? Not talking about God being loving, but God is love. God is in the trees. We talk about this still today. This philosophical mindset is still within us. But do you see how the people that Paul is speaking to, especially that he's going to be preaching to, are following by and large the Epicurean and the Stoic thinking that, look, it's not about what somebody else does for you, it's about what I do for me. Do you see at the fundamental foundation of all of this belief is I have to do something. Do you see that? It's up to me, me, myself and I, no one else. In fact, we're going to see that because of their belief system, they're going to mock Paul. They're going to reject initially what he says, but certainly have some curiosity. Notice how in verse 18, Paul is well aware who he's talking to. He's talking to these Epicureans and these Stoics, and yet he preaches Jesus and the resurrection. What is Paul going about and preaching when he goes to Thessalonica, when he goes to Berea, when he goes to Athens, when he goes to Ephesus? What is he speaking? He's speaking the gospel. We've seen it by and large, and now it's truncated here in verse 18. Jesus and the resurrection, that's the gospel. He's getting to the gospel. But then notice what the response is here by these philosophers here in verse 18. Some were saying, notice what this says, what would this idle babbler wish to say? What a strange thing to say, right? An idle babbler? Well, I don't know. I've been on a few playgrounds in my time and I don't ever remember any bully saying, you're just an idle babbler and me going crying in the corner saying, oh man, he's right. That never happened to me. What is he talking about here? What does this even mean that Paul's an idle babbler? It's this idea of a third rate journalist. You take pieces of information without understanding the full story, like a plagiarist, you pick out information and try to put it together so that other people will think you're smarter than what you are. Do you hear the pride in this? Do you hear the pride in this? Paul, you don't even know what you're talking about. You don't even know what's really real. You don't have the right knowledge, right? Pride. This is dripping with pride. And then we see another statement. Some of them are mocking Paul. Some of them also say, well, you know what? He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities. There's an intrigue there. There's an interest there. They might disagree, but we want to know what does he have to say? We want to know what is he saying, because in ancient Greece, this was the penultimate of knowledge, that when you would get together with philosophers and talk about hypotheticals, let's talk about theoreticals, let's talk about philosophical issues, that's what they're doing. So they ask Paul to go to a place called the Areopagus. In verses 19 and 20, they say, essentially, notice two times in these two verses that we can hear knowledge. We can gain knowledge. The idea is knowledge. Now, is knowledge something that's wrong? Is knowledge wrong for us to attain to? Of course, we know that knowledge is necessary. You must know Jesus, but friends, we cannot miss what's being said here. The knowledge that they are seeking to gain is what they believe will save them. Knowledge for knowledge's sake. The more you know, the better off you are. They think that knowledge is the end, not what the knowledge leads to. Does that make sense? That's what they're getting at here. So they introduce Paul to come to the Areopagus to speak truth. But before we get into the sermon that Paul gives here, we have to understand how we are like these two philosophical thoughts. What good is it if we just know these historical details about these historical people and then just jump to what Paul says? What can we see of ourselves in these people? You know, when I was reading this, when I was studying this and preparing my heart for this message, it struck me how the Epicureans, how the Stoics, how these Athenians who were gathered to listen to Paul, how they are a perfect example of you and I in the sense that what Paul's going to do with them is not teach them to worship, but he's going to help them change the object of their worship. You see, these people were already worshiping long before Paul got here. They were already worshipping in a full way. They had a full system of worship. They didn't need Paul to help them with that. They needed a change in who they worshipped. And friends, here's what you and I have to see about ourselves. You and I, regardless of your past, regardless of where you come from, you are a worshipper. long before you ever entered into this building or any other church. You came into this world as a worshiper. You live every day as a worshiper. You go to bed worshiping. Every single moment of your life is filled with worship. Now, how can we say that? Is it because you always have 99.1 on your radio in the car? Is it because you always have a tune humming in your head? La la la la la, Jesus. No, it's because you and me, as Paul's going to help us see, you and I were created to worship. You can't get around it. Every single person is worshipping something. The question is not, are you a worshipper? The question is, you already know it, what or who are you worshipping? If we look at these people here in this first part of our text, and we boil it down to one issue, let's just boil the Epicureans and the Stoics down to one central thought. They worshiped self. What about you? Do you worship self? Are you more interested in your heart idols? Are you more interested in spending time the way that you want to spend time? Are you more interested in getting what you deserve out of life? Are you more interested in life going according to your plan? That's these philosophers. I wonder, is that us as well? Are we just like them? We worship our own desires more or completely differently than worshiping God. That's what we see happening with these people. So having an understanding of this audience I think helps us out. If we can see ourselves within these philosophers, that maybe we don't worship the gods such as they worship, but maybe we're materialists, maybe we worship materials, things that we can get, maybe we're hedonists, worshiping entertainment and the lusts of the flesh, maybe we're egotists, thinking more highly of ourselves than we ought, what Paul says to them goes a long way with us too, doesn't it? This is the second main point of the sermon, and this is Paul's sermon, or the sermon that Paul gives in verse 22. I've titled this, The Fulfillment and Satisfaction Through Godly Worship. Fulfillment and satisfaction through godly worship. If we've seen who is gonna be hearing this sermon, and we see ourselves in them, then what does Paul say to these people? Notice what he says in verses 22 and 23. He starts out so kind to these people. He says, men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. He's gracious. He's about to speak the truth. And it's not going to be an easy truth to hear, but he's gracious. He's not hurtful, but he loves them. So he's going to speak the truth in grace. He says, I can see that you're very religious. While I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I found an altar with this inscription. This is that famous part now of this story. They have an altar. They have an idol that's to an unknown God. Isn't that amazing? Here they are not only as polytheists, perhaps having hundreds of gods that they're worshiping here in ancient Greece, but they're also syncretists, which means that they believe as long as we take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, we take everything of every religion, we put it all in one big soup, then all of a sudden we're good to go. Let me take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, add it together, as long as we have a little bit of everything, then certainly we can't be wrong about anything. That's the idea here. And of course, we see this in modern day thought as well. Look, you can believe whatever you want. I'll believe whatever I want. If I want to make up my own God, that's my prerogative. If I want to take a little bit of this religion, a little bit of that, then I am good. That's the thought that is so pervasive in our culture. And that's what Paul is saying they have. They are worshiping a God they don't even know about. And that's exactly where Paul inserts the gospel. Isn't it so wonderful? He sees the opportunity of an ignorance and he says, Jesus, you know that there's something else. You're terrified that you've missed it. Let me tell you what you've missed. Now friends, I could preach a whole sermon on this. Don't worry, I'm not going to. But we really need to understand How every opportunity for the gospel that God gives us must not be missed. And it doesn't happen when you're on a mission trip and you're sitting down at a VBS. It might happen there, but it happens every single day in your life as well. Do you see how Paul inserted the gospel into what we would say is really just a small opportunity, but he saw it and he took it. What about for us? Do we do that same thing? Or do we say, you know what, I was really busy. I needed to do this instead. You know, if it would have been a better time, I would have. What's more important than an opportunity to share Christ? What's more important than that? Also notice, by the way, what he says in verse 24. He talks about their ignorance. Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. And then he's about to now explode the gospel onto the scene. And before we talk about this gospel, I want to make one more note of what Paul's doing here, because we need to be learning how do we talk about the gospel from Paul. How do we evangelize? How do we speak about truth to people who are not necessarily asking for the truth? He starts with what they know, and he goes from there. He starts from the basic, and he gets greater. Here's a piece of homework that I want to give to you. So this afternoon, and you can come back tonight for our Sunday night Bible study and tell me if you did it, or lie and tell me that you did it, and then you have to repent of it, whatever it is. This afternoon, go home and look back to Acts chapter 7. If you've been with us through the Book of Acts, you'll remember Acts chapter 7 is where Stephen preached a sermon which got him killed. You'll notice the entire sermon is all drawing from the Old Testament. You guys remember this? Remember this? Stephen, everything he said was drenched in Old Testament imagery. But when we look at what Paul says in Acts chapter 17, we see none of that. In fact, outside of the creation account, which Paul's going to reference, I would challenge you to find any Old Testament reference in the text that we're gonna see this morning. It's just simply not there. Why? That's your homework this afternoon. And here's a hint, here's a hint. Who was each preacher speaking to? they knew their audience and spoke to the understanding of their audience. Check that out this afternoon. So with that in mind, what does Paul say? What does Paul say about their ignorance? If they know there's a God that they don't even know who it is, but they know they need to be worshiping him, what is he gonna tell them about that God? Let me give you five attributes of what Paul says here, and we're not taking the whole sermon, we're taking maybe two thirds of it here. I'm gonna give you five attributes that Paul says about God. So five attributes of God that are for a very specific purpose. They're for the purpose of proving God alone is worthy of right worship. You can't just add God, a list with other hundreds of heart sins, this unknown God, Yahweh, Jesus Christ, alone is worthy of worship. Five attributes. First attribute. We see this in the very beginning of verse 24. We see that God is the creator of all things and all people. This is a simple, simple statement. It's a simple beginning point, and yet everything rests by starting right here. Drawing from the creation account of Genesis 1 and 2, this is really the only aspect of the sermon that we could say draws from the Old Testament. Notice what he says at the beginning of verse 24. The God who made the world and all things in it. Again, there's no prophets, there's no judges, there's no kings, there's no Moses, there's no Abraham, there's none of that. That's not where Paul begins. Paul begins his sermon of the gospel of going all the way back to creation and says, look, you were created by someone. Someone created you. A God, the God, created you. Friends, the gospel does not begin with your feelings and your thoughts and what you think. The gospel begins with creation. We can't get to the cross until we understand, as we're gonna see here in a moment, that we're accountable to the one who created us. If we don't have that starting point, then what does the cross even mean to us? Why would I care what some divine being did if he didn't create me? Right? That's why, this is why evolution is trying to erode. It's trying to erode the beginning of the gospel. Now we see here from the very basic beginning that God is the one who created all things. There's a second attribute of God. Not only is he creator, but this is the logical next step. Also in verse 24, the end of verse 24, that God is not contained by creation. If God is the Creator of all things, then it logically progresses that God is not contained by that which He has created. That makes logical sense, doesn't it? The watchmaker is greater than and is not contained by his watch that he created. The artist is greater than and not contained by the art that he has made. Yes, we see the majesty and the glory of God in creation, but that is not the culmination or the containment of God. This is a rejection of pantheistic thought, is it not? God is not contained by that which He has created. He is greater than what He has created. A third A third point that we can see here, and a third attribute of God, not only is God creator, not only is He not contained by creation, but God, and this is so vital, God is self-sufficient and self-sustaining. So I've kind of mixed two attributes here. I've cheated just a little bit. There's two attributes that I'm here putting in the third attribute, but I think they go hand in hand. God is self-sufficient and self-sustaining. That's found in verse 25. Notice how this helps us see God has no needs. Think about that for a second. That sounds so basic, but it's so contrary to anything that you and I can possibly fathom. You and I cannot even fathom an existence of no needs. You and I have daily needs. I have needs today. If I don't eat, I'm going to feel like I'm dead tomorrow. If I don't drink, I will be dead in a couple of days. If I don't have breath, I'm dead in a couple of minutes. I don't know. Sometime pretty soon. The idea here is you and I have needs all the time. You and I are not self-sustaining. You and I are not self-reliant. You and I are not sufficient within ourselves. We need outside agents working on our behalf to help us. If creation falls apart, guess what else falls apart? Me. I can't live in no creation. But who can? God. Why? Because he's sufficient within himself. Is God reliant upon us? No. Does God need us? No. Is God diminished unless we give him something? Absolutely not. The idea here that Paul is helping us see is that God perfectly is sufficient within himself. This changes everything. Notice what he says in verse 25. Nor is he served by human hands. God does not need you and me. as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and all things. If God is the one who's given everything, then everything looks to him, not he looking to everything else. Paul would say this later in Colossians 1. 15 through 17, talking about Jesus, He's the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for by Him all things were created, both in heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authority, all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. Paul is helping us see, both here in Acts 17 and Colossians 1, that creation needs the Creator, but the Creator does not need the creation. Do you hear what I'm trying to tell you? That's a vital theological point. Creation needs its creator, but the creator does not need the creation. Terrible heresies have come about by flipping that around. Flipping that around. Now Paul's helping us see, friends, it's all about what God can do and has done. Let me make a quick application before I go to the fourth attribute of God. If this is true, right, because we mentally wanna say, yeah, of course, God is sufficient within himself, he's reliant within himself, he doesn't need anything else. Yeah, we wanna say that, absolutely. But if that is true, If God is completely sufficient within himself and I am not, if God is completely reliant only on himself, I am not, and if God has no needs and I have totally, completely daily needs, then why do we fight daily to try to be self-reliant and self-sufficient? We fight this to our very core. I can take care of myself. Thank you very much. I don't need help, I'll figure it out. I don't want anyone telling me what to do, I want to do it. Have you ever spent time with children who can talk? You've heard those things. Does that go away when we become adults? No. We just stop vocalizing them complaining and we start doing it. We start living that way. Why do we fight to be so self-reliant when you and I were created to rely upon the self-sufficient God? Friends, I'll say a little bit more about this here in a moment, but don't bemoan when you realize you're not enough. Because when you realize you're not enough, you realize who is enough. and your knee is bent to the one you were created to worship. That's a beautiful moment in the Christian's life. It's not about me, it's about him. I can't do it, he's done it. God is self-sufficient, self-sustaining. A fourth attribute from Paul's sermon here in Acts chapter 17 is from verse 26. And that is that all men are determined by God and accountable to God. What a powerful, powerful thing that Paul helps us see, that all men are determined by God and therefore accountable by God. All of this is the next logical step of progression in Paul's argument. He makes a reference back to Genesis 1 and 2 again by saying that we come through Adam, that through one man, and then he says these words. having determined their appointed times, this is in verse 26, and the boundaries of their habitation. Remember here, he's talking about all nations. He's not just talking about one, two, or just a small grouping of people. All people, their times have been determined and the boundaries of their habitation have been appointed. Every single son of Adam, every single daughter of Eve. Isn't that amazing? That everything has been determined and appointed by God. Well, what does this word mean, determined? This idea is one of designation, being appointed, or making something happen. It's the same word that Peter would use in Acts 2, verse 23 at Pentecost, when he would say that by the predetermined plan of God, you put Jesus to death on the cross. It's the same word. It's this idea that it has been designated beforehand. It's the same word that we're going to see next week when we're outside worshiping the Lord in the community. We'll be looking at the very end of Paul's sermon in verse 31. It's the exact same word that Paul will say Jesus was appointed, designated, predetermined, predestined by God for saving work. This is the same word that Paul is using, that God has designated and determined everything that has happened, everything that is currently happening, and everything that will happen. Friends, let me apply this. That means that everything in your life is not happenstance. It's determined by God for a purpose. That's huge. Your life is not just willy-nilly what you think or want it or just happen to be. It's what God has appointed your life to be. Can I make an application with this? If you're a Christian, you must believe this truth like your very life depends on it. Now, I know a thing about my life depending on something other than myself. Probably as many of you know, last weekend I went skydiving for the very first time. I realized I was trusting my whole life to somebody that I had just met. Have you ever had that moment? That's a weird moment to have. I said about two sentences, maybe three or four, to the guy who's strapped behind me, and if he doesn't help me out, that's the end of Jeremiah as we know him. My life literally depended upon a man and whoever loaded up the parachute and the plane. All of this had to work right. My life depended on it. We need to be the same way about this truth. Because you and I will mentally say, yes, God has determined all things, because God is bigger and greater and sovereign and providential over all these things. And yet, in the nitty gritty of life, we talk about this so much, but it's because we fail daily in this. In the nitty gritty of the hardest moments of life, I say, but God wasn't there. He wasn't there. When that person hurt me, When I hurt someone else, when I sinned, when someone sinned against me, God wasn't there. The God that I've always heard about is a God of love. So how could God, how could a loving God let me hurt like that? And not only just let me hurt, but plan for a purpose for me to hurt? For a person to die? For sickness to ravage that person? No, that's not the loving God I know, so I can't believe what Paul's saying here. Yes, it sounds good superficially that God determines all things, but when I get into the deep recesses of my heart, I just can't believe that. That's where it's the challenge. That's where it's the challenge. Friends, Paul is saying that everything in your life has been determined by God, not for comfort and for ease, but for something greater, which that's the fifth attribute of God. And this is what we're gonna come to a close on, that God's purpose for humanity is restoration and reconciliation. This is from verses 27 and 28. The beautiful realization If this is all true, Paul, that God is Creator, that He's not contained by His creation, if He's working through all things in His creation, if He has determined and appointed everything within His creation, especially yours and my life and our situations, then there's a purpose for it. And it's not worshipping an unknown god. It's not holding on to my heart idols of what I think I deserve, or what I think I want, or settling for what I think is best. God's purpose is completely restoration and reconciliation. Let me put it this way, and I believe we have this statement on the slides. God's purposes are not your comfort and ease, but his purposes are your salvation, sanctification, and right worship. Can we let that marinate for just a second? God's purpose is not for tomorrow to be the best day of your life. God's purposes are for you to be saved, for you to be reconciled, for you to live in right relationship with the Lord and worship Him. Do you believe that? Do you believe that? Notice what he says in verses 27 and 28. He says, that they might grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said. Isn't this amazing? He's taking what they know, believe, and he's using it here to point to Christ. As some of your own poets have said, for we also are his children. This is the big picture. And if you can wrap your head around this, and if our blind spiritual eyes can be opened by the Holy Spirit, then this is life-changing, that God desires for you to be satisfied and fulfilled. I'm not talking about comfort and ease. I'm not talking about happiness. God desires for you to be satisfied and fulfilled, but here's the catch. You will only be satisfied and fulfilled by doing what you were created to do. What was I created to do? Worshiping rightly the one whom I have been reconciled and restored with, my creator. You see, that's why that's a catch. Because you and I so instinctively hear that God wants me to be satisfied and fulfilled, we hear that as, but I've been trying. my whole life to be satisfied and fulfilled. I've spent years on the bottle. I've spent years pursuing pleasures. I have spent years chasing a relationship, chasing this relationship, chasing this experience. I've gone this way and that, and you know what? I've been empty. Remember how we started out the sermon? I started it in a little bit of a different way. Remember that sin? That when you committed it, it left you empty. It promised more than it could ever give. And the only hope that you had was repenting of that sin. You know, here's what I didn't say at the beginning. A good chunk of us, the first thing we thought about is sin that we're still in. Sin that we haven't repented of. Is it possible there's a good number of us that we, our whole lives, have been in the pursuit of being fulfilled? I just want to be satisfied. I just want my life to have purpose. So I did this, and I was empty. So I said, maybe if I go over here, but yet I've been empty. Maybe you come to this church thinking, if I come to church on Sunday morning, I'll be fulfilled. I'll be satisfied if I talk with the pastor. If I do this, then I'll be happy, right? Empty, empty, empty, empty deceit of sinful idolatry. God's purpose is for you to be satisfied, for you to be fulfilled, not by meeting with me, not by coming to church, not by an experience and not by a relationship on this earth. It's by being made right with your creator and worshiping him. So how does that happen for me today? Pastor, I want to be fulfilled. I want to live for my purpose of which I was created. It's really pretty simple. Give your heart to the Lord. Commit to his word. Trust, believe, and live it. How do I know if it's real, pastor? If it's real, it'll be real tomorrow. If it's real, it'll be real next week. And no, you won't be perfect, but it will change your life. So let me finish out with one last final application, and I'm gonna draw this from the very last verse that we're considering here this morning. It's not the end of Paul's sermon, but verse 29 says, being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. So friends, let me ask you this question, and this is the question of application. What are my unknown heart idols that I worship? What are my heart idols that I worship? I'm including the word unknown, because how possible is it that we don't even know about our heart idols that are still in our heart? And then secondly, what is keeping me from daily biblical worship? These Athenians worshiped that which they did not know You now have the question. You do know the Lord through his word. What's keeping you from worshiping him daily? And are you gonna give that to the Lord so that you will be made right in him? Let's pray. Father, how gracious you are to each one of us but especially to me. Every time as I approach your throne and worship, I'm reminded of my inability, my insufficiency, and my sin. I'm reminded that though I like to think of myself as Paul, I'm much more like these Athenians, much more worshiping my heart idols, the things that I think will bring me joy, Always leave me empty. And then Lord, your word reminds me of the goodness of Christ to make me right. And my heart is filled.