Well you’re going to need your Bibles this morning. And I hope that you came to church prepared to dig into God’s Word. And everyone can grab their Bibles and open their Bibles to Acts chapter 17. And we are going to be in verses 16 through the end of the chapter. Now if you haven’t been with us, you wouldn’t know this, but we’ve been just journeying through the book of Acts verse by verse. And the book of Acts shows us the journey of the local church being born. Christ is building His church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it.
And in Acts 1:8 Jesus told His apostles, just ordinary men, that they were to be His witnesses in all of the world, first in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And so because of their obedience, we are able to talk about the good news all these years later in Granger, Indiana. And Christ is still building His church. And so the book of Acts is just fascinating.
And I was praying. You know, Easter Sunday, it’s a big deal. You know, every week is a big deal but for some reason we make this a big deal. And people are like, “What are you going to preach on Easter? And are you going to do a special Easter message?”
And I was like, “I’m not smart enough to figure that out.” And so I was like, “I’m just going to open the Bible and see what the next thing in Acts was.” And I was praying. And I truly believe that God gave us the perfect passage. It was just the next passage as I open my Bible. And God has given us something that has stirred my affection and my worship for the risen Savior all week long from Acts 17.
His Word, the Bible, knows what we need when we need it and He is faithful here today. And so the big idea in today’s text is this. Here’s the big idea: Your response to the resurrection determines how God will judge you in eternity. Your response to the resurrection determines how God will judge you in eternity.
Now I don’t know who is here today. I don’t know what you came in with. There are certainly a lot of people in this room. But the way I see it, there are probably three kinds of people here today. There are people here who know God. There are people who know the God of glory and who have living, personal, active relationships with God.
And then there are people here who question whether or not there even is a God. You would be honest and say, You know, I don’t have a relationship with God. I have a whole lot of questions and I’ve seen a whole lot of things surrounding religion and God and I don’t want anything to do with it but somebody dragged me here this morning.
And then there are some people here who would probably say, I do have a relationship with God, but the truth is you do not have a relationship with the God of glory, the God of the Bible.
And I don’t know what category you find yourself in here on Easter Sunday of 2022. But this text today is going to help us with three things. There is one true God. God can be known personally. He wants to be close to you. He wants to be your friend, and that He is known, this God is known, through the risen Christ.
And so if you would get your eyes on a copy of God’s Word. Maybe you have an app on your phone if you don’t have a Bible. Maybe your neighbor next to you has a Bible they can share with you. But we want to read verse by verse what God wants to say in Acts chapter 17 starting in verse 16. Let’s read it together. I’ll read the first five verses.
Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. What a great thing to preach on Easter Sunday.
Verse 19. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. (Acts 17:16-21)
Stop there. So right off the bat, we see that the apostle Paul is in a new city. He finds himself in the historic, iconic city of Athens, Greece. Has anybody been to Athens, Greece in the room? Anybody? I have been to Athens, Greece. It is a beautiful city. You can just feel the history in Athens, Greece. So much of philosophy and sports history and art and theater and architecture and beauty and politics have been influenced throughout history by the city of Athens. It was the epicenter of some of the world’s greatest philosophers and thinkers and artists, people like Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and Epicurios and Zeno who gave us the religion of stoicism.
And verse 16 of the text tells us that Paul finds himself in Athens on sort of an off day if you will. Verse 15 tells us that they fled Berea and they took Paul to Athens. And so Silas stayed in Berea and Doctor Luke, who was on his missions team, is back in Philippi still. And so here is Paul in a city that he’s no doubt heard about waiting for the rest of his team to join him. That sounds like a great day to sightsee, have a gyro down by the Mediterranean. I mean, that is a great day in the city of Athens. And maybe Paul did some of that. I don’t know.
But very quickly we see that when you truly have the Spirit of God in you, you can’t help but notice things that do not glorify God. and the city of Athens, it was full of idolatry, just full of idols all around.
In verse 16 it says that Paul’s spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day.
By the way, the marketplace is a great place to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel doesn’t just need shared in the church. That’s why at Gospel City Church we talk about living sent as the people of God because this message of hope that is within us, it should be taken and it should be shared and preached in the marketplace every single day. That’s exactly what Paul was doing.
And he reasoned with those. Verse 18. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities” So there are two kinds of religious groups that Paul is speaking to. The Epicureans believed the gods were far off and unconcerned with your life. So they were essentially Hedonists. Their motto was “If it feels good, do it. If it brings you pleasure, go for it.” Not concerned with life after death, because philosophy says that when you die you are done.
Now the stoics believed that everything was God. So the Stoics believed that the rocks were god, that the sun was god, that the storms were god, that the weather was god. GK Chesterton was a writer, a theologian, and he said this: “If you stop worshiping God, you don’t start worshiping nothing. You worship everything. And then if you are worshiping everything then you actually know nothing worthy of worship.”
So these are just two examples of something I think is still very prevalent in our culture in America today. Many live their life unconcerned with the future or life after death. And then he lived by the motto, “Eat, drink and be merry.”
And yet if you look deep down in your life, you would honestly say probably that you’re not merry at all. And many live trying to fill the void that they feel with what they can get their hands. As the stoics worhsipped creation and finite objects, you’ve tried to fil your void with sex, with durgs, with relationships, with religion, with nature, you fill in the blank.
And for believers, especially on Easter Sunday, we’ve come to see the foolishness of trying to fill the void in our lives with these things. Those who have truly been changed by Jesus see the emptiness in all that the world has to offer and it should provoke our spirit to tell others about Jesus Christ just as it did Paul that day. Now some, they called him a babbler. The word babbler translates to “seed-picker”. He was like a bird just like picking up ideas and dropping them here and there. Nothing coherent. You know, the Greeks were too smart for his ideas.
And so I don’t know what brought you to church today. Maybe your grandma was like, “You’re going to church,” and you got dragged here.
And you’re going to go this afternoon and someone is like, What did you do this morning?
I went to church.
How was that?
Oh, some dude got up and babbled about the Bible all afternoon.
Maybe that’s what you’ll think. But some thought he was just speaking of other foriegn gods in a pluralistic way. Like they say you’re speaking of these foreign divinities, divinities, gods, that we’ve never heard of. And they seem to separate Jesus and the resurrection. Who is this Jesus that you speak of? And surely there’s not a God of the resurrection. Surely there’s not a God over the dead. Once you die, you’re done.
And then verse 19. They take Paul and they bring him to the Areopagus saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?” So as Paul preaches the gospel they become curious. I pray that you would even be curious as to what this message, what Paul is speaking today in His Word.
And he says, “And you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” Now all the Athenians they love just like talking about new ideas, new gods.
And so verse 22. Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship. Stop there for one second. Let me just give you some context over here. I was in Athens, I told you. So Paul, he would have been like down in the marketplace, which was known as the Agora. And so everything kind of rolls down in Athens and then moves upward. And the whole, you know, their gods, the holy things are upwards.
And so Paul, as his spirit was provoked and as they’re trading idols and selling things and he sees idolatry all around, his spirit is provoked. He’s speaking the gospel in the marketplace. And then they say, We’ve got to go and hash this out. And so they go upward to the Areopagus or Mars Hill it translates to.
And this is the view from Mars Hill. I was on that rock where Paul preached this message. And that is a breathtaking view of the city of Athens. And so as he looks out he’s like, “Men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious.” Now just off in the distance was the Acropolis. Now the Acropolis is like the highest peak in the city of Athens. This is where the Greeks house their gods. They have temples on this mountain where their gods are housed.
And so there’s the Parthenon, the Temple of Nike, the Temple of Athena. There are all kinds of carved images like this next picture. And it’s just ornate. I mean fascinating architecture for such history. But the next picture shows the Temple of Nike just looming over the city of Athens.
So you can imagine like the religiosity of this contrary. And there they are in this city and their so-called gods are up here watching over their city. And they would travel up the hill and they would sacrifice and do all kinds of heinous things to appease their god. Here’s a picture of me sitting on Mars Hill in my jorts playing my guitar, looking real cool. The Acropolis in the background. What a day it was.
Vut in verse 23, ok? Verse 23 we will see the genius of Paul’s ability to communicate and contextualize the message of Jesus Christ. Look at what he says. He says, I noticed the objects of your worship. I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. (Acts 17:23)
Paul is like, You Athenians are so smart that you’ve absolutely confused yourselves. You’ve got so many gods and idols that you’ve made a shrine to an unknown god. Why does somebody need a shrine to an unknown god when you have all these other gods and this mountain full of gods? Well, because they knew that something was missing. They knew there must have been something bigger out there. With all of those false gods, they had never met the one true God.
And Paul says, I’m about to introduce you to the unknown god. But the good news is this. He alone is only God, but you can actually know Him. And then he moves into a glorious sermon for us on Easter Sunday of 2022 and he proclaims nine attributes of the unknown God. I’m going to give them to you. Nine attributes of the unknown God.
The first one is this: The true God is one. The true God is one. Verse 24. He says, “The God.” That’s how he starts. You know how when you watch the NFL and there’s like a player from like a cocky university, say like Ohio State. And he’s like, “I’m from THE Ohio State University,” as if to separate him from like the rest of the schools. That’s how Paul in the middle of all these gods, he says, “The God,” in the middle of the Greeks.
Because there is only one God. He is set apart and he is Alpha and Omega and He is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is none like Him. He is triune. He is three in one. And Scripture says, “Thou shalt have no other gods besides me.” So if you have more than one god, you do not know the one true God.
The second thing that Paul declares, attribute, is that the true God is Creator. Verse 24 goes on and Paul says, The God who made the world and everything in it. Paul quickly establishes that God is the Creator of all things. And if God is the Creator of all things, He is the owner of all things and He is over all things and all things exist because God created them. That was in direct contrast to what the stoics would have believed. They believed that God and creation were separate. And the creation is worshiping God. Creation was made to declare the glory of God. And it’s as if Paul says to the Athenians, If you do not separate creation and the Creator, then you do not know the one true God.
The third thing that Pual says is that the true God is King. The true God is King. In verse 24 it says, He is being Lord of heaven and earth. Paul establishes the lordship and kingly position that must be attributed to the God of glory.
Scripture says in the Psalms that our God sits in the heavens and He does what He pleases. The Song of Moses and Revelation says, “Just and true are your ways, oh king of the nations. Will not all fear oh Lord and glorify your name for you alone are holy.” All nations will come and will worship you. And to know God as anything less than King over all is to not know the one true God.
Paul is on a roll right out of the gate. Number four, the fourth attribute of the unknown God that he gives, the true God, is transcendent. Verse 24 goes on, The God does not live in temples made by man. I mean, Paul is a bold dude. He’s standing on a rock surrounded by temples made by human hands and he proclaims that the one true God does not dwell in temples made by human hands. You can imagine how offensive this would have been to the audience as he preached the gospel.
Now to say that God is transcendent is to recognize that He is high and He is holy. He exists in perfect holiness and otherness. God is in a category of His own that cannot be fathomed or met.
One philosopher has said that, “Trying to describe God is like trying to pour the ocean into a teacup.” Can you imagine a teacup? It would be obliterated into a thousand tiny pieces, and so would your brain as you try to understand God. God dwells in unapproachable light. His glory is the outshining of His presence. And that glory is enough to incinerate one who would look upon Him. And you’re trying to tell me, Greeks, that you house your gods in boxes over there on that hill? Anyone who tries to reduce God to human comprehension or logic does not know the one true God.
Number five, the true God is self-sufficient. Verse 25 says, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything. Get this this morning. God is not lacking anything. God is in need of nothing or no one. And yet it is rooted deep in our sinful nature as humans that we would have to appease God in order for Him to love us, that we would have to earn His love or provide the right offering so that He might love us.
God does not need us. God doesn’t need your intellect. God doesn’t need your offering. God doesn’t need your temples. God doesn’t need anything that you bring, but we’re going to see today that He wants your heart. Anyone who thinks he can offer what God lacks does not know the one true God.
Number six, Paul continues, God, the true God, is giver. Verse 25. Since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. Paul tells his audience that this God is self-sufficient, transcendent, creating. He is King, but He is sustaining your very life and your very breath. You and I have means, reason to worship today. Because the breath that is in your lungs as you stood to your feet today is being sustained by a Creator God who does not need you, but He wants to have a relationship with you.
What a tragedy to go through life not being able to thank the one who gives you life and breath and everything. And yet a majority of the world wants to believe that they are alive by chance or that they have no purpose in this life. Even as I was writing this sermon and studying this week in a local coffee shop, I was sitting there and across the speakers I heard a song playing. And I was like, I looked up what the song was.
Here’s the lyrics I heard over that speaker in that coffee shop said. “I believe most definitely in only that which I can see. And my senses and myself agree there is no you. There’s only me. I don’t believe in heaven or hell. No. In fact, there’s no plan as far as I can tell. It’s every man for himself. It’s only me. There’s no one else.”
What a sad reality to live in. And yet just as the philosophers were looking for the meaning of life and higher power, our culture is too. We are looking for something deep down, whether you know it or not. And we may not listen to the ideologies of philosophers, but we listen to music and artists who are peddling the same kind of nonsense just like that day in the coffee shop. And the truth is, if you do not recognize God as the all-sustaining, life-giving source of everything existing, then you do not know the one true God.
Now the seventh thing that Paul says in his sermon. The true God is in control. Verse 26. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling places.
The Greeks, they would have been massively offended by this truth as Paul declares that every nation came from the same man. Paul is declaring that all of creation, all of mankind, has come from Adam. And Adam was the first to bring sin into the world and we have all been born of Adam. Therefore we are sinful and therefore we do not have access to the holy transcendent God of the universe because we fall short of His glory because of sin in our lives.
The Greeks would have called the non-Greeks “barbarians” because they thought they were better than everyone. But Paul is essentially declaring at this point that God chose no partiality, that in Christ Jesus there is no Jew, there is no Greek. We are one in Christ. And not only are we one, but God has spread us out across the world by His sovereign control. And then he says this. If you do not see your god as in control, your god is too small and you’ve missed the one true God.
Paul is going hard on the rock, Mars Hill in Athens. And he gets to number eight. This is the good news. He closes with good news and then he closes with bad news. And today I close with good news and I close with bad news. And I pray that the Spirit of God would be here in your midst. The God that I am proclaiming to you, the God that Paul was proclaiming in Athens, is the one true God, the King of glory. And He created you. He breathed you into existence. He created you in His image so that He might walk with you and have a relationship with you.
And the eighth thing that Paul says. The true God is knowable. Verse 27. He spread them out over the face of the earth that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us. For “‘In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said,“‘For we are indeed his offspring.”
This is huge news on Mars Hill that day, and this is huge news for us on Easter Sunday of 2022. The transcendent high and holy life-sustaining God is not far off. In fact, He is close and He can be your friend. And though He doesn’t need anyone or anything, He desires to walk with you and be intimately and intricately involved in the deepest facets of your life.
God is indeed a just and sovereign King. But He wants to walk with you and lead you and guide you like a Father leads HIs child. And Scripture says in Ecclesiastes that He has put eternity in every man’s heart. God has placed eternity in our hearts. And so if you’re truly honest with yourself, you know something is missing in your life. That’s why you seek and why you feel your way towards filling that emptiness just like the Greeks, seeking and feeling, having a shrine to an unknown god because they know something’s missing.
And the problem is we most often fill the void with that which will never satisfy. In our attempts to find purpose and meaning and freedom, we most often find heartache and brokenness and addiction and depression, and eventually we hit rock bottom. But God is not far from each one of us. That’s what Paul says to these Athenians, these religious men who were seeking all the world to find a God that would appease the void in their life. God is not far.
And He made the first move. That’s why He’s not far. God made the first move. He moved toward you and I pray that you would sense Him moving toward you even today, even right now. And all of creation pointing to Him and declaring His glory. And the emptiness in your life is longing for this God, the one true God. And even greater is the truth that God came to us.
Why am I telling you about the God of glory on Easter Sunday? Because you need to be reconciled to this God. You desperately need to be reconciled to God. And the only way it’s been made possible is because God moved toward you when He sent His one and only Son to this messed up and broken world.
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Scripture says it this way: “At the proper time God sent forth His Son to be born under the law so that He could redeem those who are under the law.” That’s you and me. And Jesus, He never sinned. He kept the law. You and I have broken the law on our best day, and that’s what separates us from a holy God. But Jesus came born under the law so that He could keep it and redeem those who are under the law. He lived a perfect life and He grew in the wisdom and the stature of His Father. And He loved you so much that He endured the cross.
Philippians chapter 2 says it this way. Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But Jesus, the God of the universe, humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And while hope seemed lost because the sinless Savior died, He was only stealing death’s power once and for all.
And because though He was laid behind a stone, and they made His grave with the wicked, it was on the third day that He rose again from the dead, that He came out of His grave so that you could get out of yours one day. He came out of His grave so that we could walk in abundance.
And Philippians says, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord of all.
You can bow the knee. You can call upon this Jesus who walked out of His grave today and He can change your life forever. He can change your destination and your eternity. You can have a homecoming like we sang right before I came up. But eventually you will be made to bow the knee. And in the end it will be too late.
Paul declares the God who has made Himself known as defeated has defeated death and the grave, and if your god doesn’t have resurrection power you do not know the one true God. And then he gives the bad news to the Greeks. The good news is God is close and you can know Him.
But here’s the ninth thing that Paul says. The true God will judge the world through the risen Christ. Verse 29. Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. That was everything that was surrounding them.
Verse 30. The times of ignorance God overlooked, 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.”
God will judge the world. This God that I tell you of today, He is going to judge you. And He either looks at you and sees your own human efforts and you’ll experience His judgment for an eternity in hell separated from His goodness and the God of glory or He will look at you and see the precious blood of Jesus whom He poured out His judgment toward sin on.
That’s why Paul says God commands all people to repent. To repent is to turn from your sin. If you’re born into this world with a sin nature, with sin on your mind and on your heart and you are walking this way, the only way to be saved is to understand, to be intersected by the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Jesus died on a cross in your place as a substitute for your sin. And as His precious blood, as His Spirit opens up your heart, as God draws close to you, you open up your life and you receive Him. And you believe that this can save you. You believe that this can fill the void in your life.
And you repent. You say, Lord, I believe and I turn from my sin. That’s what repentance looks like right there. I was going this way and God put me on a trajectory toward heaven, toward a relationship with HIm, toward glory. And now I’m walking this way. And I don’t do it perfectly, and I still have things messed up and I’m still ever aware that I am a sinful, messed up human being.
But Christ’s blood has covered me because He came out of the grave and He was resurrected that day. And Paul says, “God commands that all people repent.” And I say to you today, God commands that all people repent. Because your only hope of salvation, freedom, and knowing God, filling the void in your life, is to recognize that you can’t fill it on your own. So you turn from the world and you follow Jesus.
If you do not believe God will judge your eternity after you die, you do not know the one true God and you will live abestn from His presence in hell.
Now I said at the beginning of this message that the big idea from this text is this: Your response to the resurrection determines how God will judge you in eternity. If I could urgently and passionately call you to anything, it would be to turn from your sins and follow Jesus.
Unlike the Greeks believed and contrary to popular belief in our culture today, life after death truly matters. This is not what you are living for. Life after death matters way more than your best day here on earth. The truth that Jesus Christ rose from the dead is either the best news in the world or it will be the worst news for those who live as if it weren’t true.
You will either spend an eternity knowing the beauty and the splendor and the majesty of the God that I have described to you today or you will live eternally aware that you are absent from the presence of God. And the Bible says that that place is like weeping and gnashing of teeth. Hell will be a place of desolation, despair, eternal life and the conscious torment of cursing God who is absent.
And the way I see it today, there are really two responses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Whether you want to be or not, you will be judged by the righteousness of Jesus and the truth that He has power over death. And would you look at the responses that we see in verse 32-24?
Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
You can walk out of here today hearing this message, seeing all the singing and you know, the beautiful environment and the celebration that we put on and you can mock the resurrection. That’s what many did on the Mars Hill that day. Many walked out and they said, It’s just a bunch of babble, just a bunch of foreign divinities. What can that do for me?
You know, a bunch of people, they get real excited about Jesus coming out of the grave, but then life moves on, life gets busy. I’ve got stuff to do. You can walk out mocking the truth that Jesus rose from the dead, but God will judge you according to that response.
Or you’ll be like those who desired to hear more. So they went with Paul and they believed the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’m not saying you’re going to figure it all out today, but you can come back. And there are people here who want to walk with you and who want to take time with you and want to answer questions and show you what God has said.
And in this passage we see the necessary ingredients for salvation. I pray that you are sensing that God is close right now, that He is drawing toward you. Even if you have walked with God for forty years, you need Him to draw close and remind you of this glorious truth. And I’ve been praying all week long that as He moves toward you, you would respond to His resurrection fresh and anew. And in this passage we see the necessary means for knowing this God. You know Him through repentance and through belief.
Romans chapter 10:9-10, one of the simplest ways to say how to turn to the Lord. It says this: If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. That means He’s King, that He will rule, that you’ll no longer live as your own King, but you’ll make Him Lord of your life. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified.
Your belief in your heart will move you to action, will move you to follow Christ. And with the mouth one confesses and is saved. You’ve got to say it. Jesus, I believe that You are King. Jesus, I believe that You can change my life. And if I’m honest, if I’m honest, I’ve heard this over and over and over again. And I don’t always live like it.
Even in the middle of this week, painfully aware of my own sinfulness, painfully aware that I need the blood of Jesus just as much as you. And I’ve turned to Him. I’ve walked with Him for a long time. I’m still a sinful human being. But because of the cross of Jesus Christ I can come to the God of glory and know that He has forgiven me and know that he covers my sinfulness with HIs precious Son’s blood.
And He wants to do the same thing for you. So I’m going to ask everyone to bow their heads for a moment. I don’t know your story. I don’t know what you’ve walked in here with. But I’ve got to believe that there are people here today who came in thinking they had a relationship with the God of glory. And even now, as we come to a close, you’re questioning whether or not you actually do know God. You’re questioning whether or not you actually have followed the one true God.
And those of you here today that have come and you would be honest and say, You know what? I don’t follow God. I’ve never been a big religious guy. I’ve never been a big church guy or Jesus guy. I pray that you would know God is close. I don’t know what you’re trying to feel your way towards or grasp for, but the Spirit brought you here for a reason here today. God is not far off and He wants to change your life.
Keep your heads bowed. But when I was young, the Lord used my father to lead me to the Lord at the top of my steps in Butler, Pennsylvania. And he led me in a simple prayer. I want to lead us in a prayer together. You repeat after me.
Father God, I acknowledge that I am a sinner. I acknowledge that there is nothing that I can do to save myself. I desperately need Jesus. And I believe that Jesus is God and that God has raised Him from the dead, stealing death’s power once and for all. Just as Jesus got out of His grave, would You help me to get up out of mine and walk in a relationship with the God of glory?
Lord, we give you praise here today and we thank You for Your mercy. We thank You for Your grace. We thank You for Your kindness. We thank You for Your compassion. But most of all, we thank You that You can be known, that You are not far off, that You do not dwell in temples made by human hands. But in you we live and breathe and move and have our being. God, we worship and celebrate and praise because all that You can do. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now here’s what- just hang with me. We’re going to go out celebrating today, but I want to ask you to do something bold, ok, in the room. If that was the first time that you have prayed that prayer, I’m going to ask you to stand where you are in just a moment, in just a moment. And if you came in today and you know that you have not been living for the God of glory but you want to pray that prayer and you want to rededicate your life and you want to walk out of here and make some changes and you want to actually get some help and you want to come here again, I’m going to ask you to stand too.
If you came in here today and you were like, I thought I knew God, but as we’ve unpacked God’s Word here today I don’t actually think I have a living, active, personal relationship with the God of glory, I want you to stand. I know it’s bold. But stand in this room. One, two, three. C’mon you can stand up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we give the Lord a hand? Give the Lord a hand. C’mon, shout for joy. Shout for joy. He changes lives. He is moving.
Now listen. You stay standing a moment. We’re going to have some pastors and elders head out to the cross out in the lobby. And I want to invite you to go out there and to find someone to talk to, find someone that you can pray with. They’ll be there after the service. It’s going to get crazy out in the lobby. You can go now if you want. But don’t leave today if you stood up. Don’t leave today without getting a Bible in your hand, without getting a new believers’ kit in your hand, without thinking about the truth of God, ok? You can go right now. They’re ready to talk to you. But please go to the cross after the service.
For everyone, let’s stand and let’s proclaim all that Christ has done and let’s go out celebrating.
