Three Steps to Knowing God (for Those Who Think They Can't)

We're continuing our series on the Church of God, looking through the book of Acts. Last week, we looked, retrospectively almost as we sort of chronologically work through Acts, we've jumped all the way back to Acts 9, and we looked at the conversion of a man called Saul of Tarsus, who eventually became Paul the Apostle. And we saw that the nature of this zealous persecutor of the church was completely gripped by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was humbled at the power of this Jesus of Nazareth and his life was turned upside down.

And we marvelled at the conclusion that even Paul himself realised about his life, that if God can save this man, Paul, he can save anybody. Today, we look at one of this man's greatest sermons, perhaps, that he ever preached, which is the great sermon he preached in Athens in Acts 17. And so we're going to look at what was said there, captured only in summary, we believe, by Luke, the narrator of the book of Acts. But we will pull apart some of the great themes that Paul mentioned in this sermon before the Athenians, the Greeks in Athens. Acts 17, we're going to start at verse 16.

Now, while Paul was waiting for his other travelling companions, Silas and Timothy at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him and 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. 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. So 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, I found also an altar with this inscription, to the unknown god.

What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you, the God who made the world and everything in it, being lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 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 place, 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. 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.

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. 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.

So far, our reading, this is the word of God. This morning, we're going to deal with the question of knowing God. And we're going to look at three steps, three steps to know God, especially for those who think they can't. This is a great sermon for those listening perhaps this morning who aren't sure whether they can know God or perhaps for some of us who have friends and family who think no one can know God, no one can be sure whether God can be known.

This is exactly what Paul is dealing with in this sermon of his. Three steps to knowing God, especially for those who think they can't. The first thing we see is Paul making this claim in verses 24 to 25. There is a God who has created us and therefore owns us. Paul begins his great sermon to the Athenians by flattering them, by building rapport with them, with his observation that they seem to be very religious.

I can see that you are very spiritual people, he says. But we soon understand that he is saying that they are religious or spiritual even though they don't know God at all. The truth is, these Greeks were polytheists, which means they worshipped many gods. Athens itself and once our lockdown finishes, you can go to Athens and you can go and see all the temples and all the statues and all the altars that were built to the many gods the Greeks worshipped. Paul comes across in his stay in Athens an altar that was dedicated to an unknown god.

Commentators point out that it seems the Greeks were trying to cover all their bases. They worship many gods, the god of this and the god of that. And yet, to make sure that they don't miss any god, they create an altar to the one that may be there, but we don't know yet. The unknown god. And they would bring their sacrifices and they would bring their prayers to this unknown god.

Paul preaches his most famous sermon to explain to the Athenians that there is only one God who is unknown to them or by them, but he can be known. And he begins his argument by saying that we are surrounded by revelation all the time. Namely, he says, it's the wonders of creation itself. It's the wonder of God's ongoing work to sustain that creation that reveals him. In verse 24, he says that the God who made the world and everything in it is also the God who gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

In other words, this God is both the creator and the sustainer. He covers everything. While there may be gods who create in the Greek pantheon and others that maintain and have a role with humanity, this God is over all. He is the beginning. He is the end.

Just like if you were to look at a tag on your clothing to see who has made it, if you were to look with spiritual eyes, Paul says, under every rock, under every bush, under every animal, though I don't suggest you go and try and look under a lion, you will find the words stamped across them all, made by God. Now, the Athenians, like many Australians today, would have been challenged with this assertion. In the pantheon of the Greek gods, there were already gods that had been assigned to the creative powers, or they were assigned creator deities. The god of chaos, for example, or the god of nature, Gaia, were part of the group of gods believed to have created the world. And so when Paul says, let me tell you about the creator of everything, he is already challenging their thoughts.

It's not as though some of us, when I first read this, they I assume they have a blank slate that Paul is going to step into and say, well, let me tell you about this huge hole in your theology. No. There's already room that has been taken up in their worldviews. Likewise, today, when we begin our conversations with friends and family members, we naturally must begin with where we've come from. But where we've come from in everyone's worldview, especially these friends of ours, they will have placeholders.

They will have some idea. It may be vague, but they will have some concept of why we are here, how we came to be here. If they consider themselves overtly spiritual, they might believe in a man made god. And if they are agnostic or atheistic, agnostic meaning I don't know or I can't be sure, they will believe in the great gap of evolution, perhaps. No reasonably sane person has a blank space in their mind about the question, where did I come from?

Because at the centre of us all is a worldview, and at the centre of each worldview is the presumption about why I exist, how I've come to exist. But Paul begins, and when we share the gospel with people, we have to begin here as well. It is significant to point out that whether you are religious or not, this assumption about where we've come from is always spiritual. It is always religious. If you don't believe me, have a listen to our favourite naturalist, Sir David Attenborough.

As a self proclaimed agnostic, meaning I don't know, I cannot know whether God exists for sure, he speaks with authority about the world which God has created. But if you were to think that an agnostic who doesn't know whether God actually exists will be neutral about their inner spirituality, think again. Every human heart has a spiritual placeholder for where we think we've come from. And if you listen to David Attenborough's commentary of the natural world, you experience something as close to a religious experience as you can get without calling yourself religious. As soon as you start hearing him reflect on the magnificence of the world, he begins speaking like any Christian might speak about God.

His words touch on the transcendent. You can hear him say things like birds having glorious colours. Something about this bird shows glory. But what is glory, Sir David? And who has defined glory?

He will speak of the theory of evolution as though it has some mind of its own. He will say evolution has created. Evolution. This strictly brainless, impersonal force has the ability to create. He will marvel and he will say, isn't mother nature wonderful?

And there you have it. Nature itself has been given a personality. Nature itself can create. And this mother is wonderful, meaning filled with wonder. Don't be mistaken.

These are worship words, and they allude to awe and splendour tied to the things that are divine and transcendent. What does this all mean? Well, it tells us that the revelation of God through his divine creative power is absolutely crystal clear. We can't miss his glory. We might be willing to ascribe it to something or someone else, but we can't miss it.

Every person, in other words, will worship something behind the beauty and the awe of the world around us, even while we might say, I'm not a religious person because I have never sung a hymn in my life. But it's not true. We are worshipping all the time. As a Christian, however, I've come to realise something similar to what the author Michael Kendrick has concluded. He writes, if God wanted to remain silent about his existence, he wouldn't have bothered creating the stars.

He wouldn't have made the Milky Way or the supergiant Betelgeuse. In fact, he wouldn't have made the majestic Rocky Mountains, the rippling oceans, or the magnificent hummingbird. If God's goal was to remain quiet and anonymous, he wouldn't have created anything at all. But instead, he spoke into existence a smorgasbord for our experience. Wonder for our eyes, beauty for our ears, fragrances for our noses, and joy for our hearts, which combines them all together.

His creation screams about his unseen beauty. It shouts about his unseen qualities and his magnificence. When Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he crafted an outward expression of his inner person and in the same way, God's creation exhibited through the mountains, the stars and the oceans, an expression of the God we can't see, but whose character is all around us. The problem doesn't lie with the clarity of natural revelation itself.

The problem lies, as Paul will say later when he is writing Romans 1, the problem lies in the perceptiveness of the human heart to see him, to want to see him. Paul writes, for God's invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world. So they, humanity, are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their hearts were darkened. So firstly, in order to know God, you must understand that there is a God who has made us and therefore he owns us.

Then secondly, the next logical step is to understand this God has a purpose for all of us, for all those who he has created. The great Dutch reformed theologian and prime minister of Holland, Abraham Kuiper, once wrote, in this world, God has made a theatre in which man is both spectator and actor. Not only is the created world around continuing witness of God's divine power, but we ourselves are part of this unfolding revelation. We are part of the revelation of God. And Paul begins making that case in verses 26 to 27.

After Paul has said that there is a God who exists, he moves on to the next logical pathway in coming to know God, and that is to understand that God is not some silent, distant, impersonal power. He is a personal being who especially created humanity for a purpose. And this purpose is tied to knowing him. The purpose of humanity is to know God. And Paul begins to make his case by cleverly referencing one of the Athenians' own poet philosophers.

From the poem Phenomena, Paul quotes the line by the philosopher Aratus, we are indeed his offspring in verse 28. And Paul uses this as a point of connection, a very intelligent cultural hook that shows that even those who profess to not be Christians have an awareness of the Christian God. We are his offspring. And Paul quotes this in order to say to these Greeks, we are children of God. We are children of God.

Now, we know that children have a purpose. Children are not random things that are thrown into the chaos of existence. They are not unimportant. That's why we love and cherish them. Children have tremendous purpose.

Essentially, children come into the world to fulfil a parent's hopes. Now, whether they can live up to those hopes, whether those hopes are realistic or not, that's a different matter, but children come about for all sorts of purposes. That purpose can be to carry on the family name. It can be to provide for parents in their old age. It can be as simple as being cute little babies who mom can cuddle.

And then, when they become smelly, awkward teenagers, they get passed off to dad, who now has a buddy to go mountain bike riding with. Kids become the vehicle by which parents vicariously live out all of their hopes, but children come about for a purpose. Even bad, neglectful parents would have, at one time, had a reason in mind for having children and likewise, says Paul, God as our creator has a purpose for his offspring. Now, someone's offspring generally reflects the purpose of the person of whose offspring they are. There is something in that child that has come from their parents.

So a child may have dark hair because mom and dad have dark hair. They may be short because mom and dad are short. They may have familiar or similar facial expressions or features, and may God help my kids one day if they ever inherit my dancing ability. Paul is saying to the Greeks, even in your own literature, there is something that you've recognised about human beings that speaks of our origin. There's something in the gamut of the human condition that tells us that we are offspring of a creator God.

The Bible coins this resemblance as being created in the image of God. And so, after having said that there is a God who has created everything around us, Paul is moving to the next important truth. God has created everything in us as well. We are part of his divine revelation. Look at any human being and you will see the image of God.

And so the great fallacy again, and it is a logical fallacy within the heart that chooses to reject God, is choosing to adopt a principle that you cannot live consistently by. Because on the one hand, you're saying, God doesn't exist. And at the same time, you are thinking, and you are feeling, and you're creating, you're worshipping, and you're philosophising all the way towards making that conclusion. You are doing all these profoundly God-like things all the way towards making that claim. To think, to feel, to create, to worship, to philosophise in the ways that only humans can shows that we are creatures inseparably linked to God.

The fact that we even can think about God, worry about whether he exists or not, is a link to God. We are part of the natural revelation of God. But it's precisely this image of God in us which has the ability to philosophise and to create, it's exactly this that is hijacked by sin to deceive us into worshipping things other than God. Paul mentions this or alludes to this in verse 29. He says, 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 the imagination of man.

There is God's image. Art, imagination. In other words, because we are God's children, we are subservient to him. We are his offspring. We've come from him.

He is therefore greater, we are lesser, but the irony of sin is that instead of being drawn towards him, we deceive ourselves into thinking we can make the God that we want. Can you see how things have flipped upside down completely? In other words, because we have the creative capacity built into us by God as his image bearers, we take that creative capacity and we create new gods to worship. In Athens, it's a marble statue and a golden image. But behind these statues were ideas and concepts that people today worship just as fervently.

In essence, God's purpose in creating us was always to have a relationship with him, to always inseparably be linked with him. We are his offspring. We are his children and as children, we bear a resemblance to the father. Yes, unfortunately, part of this resemblance and the existence of sin in our hearts causes us to fashion gods who we prefer to worship rather than the true and living God. And so the modern Australian may not worship a statue of Zeus and have something like that set up in their backyard, but most Australians have stitched together some vague concept of a God who gives meaning to their life and they somehow hope that they are pleasing that God.

So the second step to knowing God is to understand that we were created for a purpose by this creator and this purpose has always been to know him. But then lastly, we come to Paul's great appeal and it's the thing that each of us must come to with this knowledge. It's the final step in knowing God and that is that we must believe the revelation of God in Jesus Christ or be left forever in darkness. And that is from verses 30 to 31. The revelation of God through the world around us causes our minds to be elevated towards him.

Paul says in verse 27 that they should seek God through this revelation and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Now, what this means is that no human being will ever be able to truthfully say to God, I never had any idea of your existence. Why? Because his existence is plastered all around us. And part of the universe, part of the purpose of the universe is to cause God's special offspring, mankind, to develop a curiosity or a desire that elevates the soul towards the divine.

Yet the revelation found in nature has never been enough because of this one terrible condition called sin. Sin is described in the Bible as something that obscures our understanding. That's why in the passage we quoted earlier in Romans 1, Paul says that people's hearts are darkened by sin. What happens in the dark? We can't see.

Underlining the appeal then by Paul is the assumption that people have misread the signs of God. The Athenians have misunderstood what these things point to. They attributed creation to other gods, to false gods. It was obvious to Paul back then and it is obvious now that natural revelation fails in giving us a rock solid understanding of who the God of the universe is. That is why Paul says we needed a clearer revelation and that is where Jesus comes in.

In verse 30, Paul comes towards his great appeal to the Athenians. He says to them with power, the times of ignorance God has overlooked. But now, God 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.

Now Jesus isn't mentioned by name, but Paul is referring to him explicitly. Jesus will be the one who judges the world and he will judge it, Paul says, in righteousness, which means Christ will judge it completely fairly. He will judge it completely fairly based on his perfect knowledge. And if you understand what Paul has been saying in his speech, you come to realise the thing that will be evaluated and judged is this question. What have you done with your awareness of God?

That is what is being judged. What have you done with your awareness of God? And no single human being will be excused. No one will be exempted. We have all known about God, firstly, through the majesty of the universe, but now, specifically, through what Jesus Christ has shown us and that is what Paul is referring to here.

Ask yourself the question, why does Jesus get to judge us? Why not God the creator, God the father who has made us his offspring? Well, Jesus gets to judge us for this reason, because he came to us. It was Jesus who brought us the truth about God. He taught us and he lived as God would live among us.

I've had people say to me, and perhaps you've had the same thing said, I will believe God if he comes and he stands next to me and he tells me, I am God. Believe in me. And I tell them, guess what? He has and his name is Jesus. And he will be the one to judge us because when we see him face to face and when we stare in his eyes, not a single person will be able to say to him, I've never had a chance to know you.

God, you've never revealed yourself to me. Jesus will say to them, you have always known. You've known about me through creation and you've known me through the message of the gospel, the message that has been safeguarded and protected and proclaimed by my church. You've always had the opportunity to seek me and to find me. Where the natural world could only ever offer us the opportunity to feel our way towards God like a blind man fumbling around in his darkness.

When Jesus came as a flesh and bone man, God decided to come to you. He said to you, here I am. See me, know me, receive me. Jesus will be the judge, not God the Father because when we see him, we will know we have no excuse. God is not hidden.

God is not distant. But notice, up until this point, the Athenians have been happy listening to this interesting teaching by Paul. It was stimulating. It was a cool story, bro. But verse 32 says that when Paul mentions the word resurrection, they mock him.

Why? For the same reason people reject Jesus Christ today. It's one thing to have a fairy tale concept of Jesus. That nice guy who taught some nice things a long time ago. It's one thing to explore the concept of philosophy about how we got here and the meaning of life.

Believe it or not, most Aussies that you'll speak to about the concept of God, well, that's actually a safe concept to broach with them. You can go to a pub down at the RSL in the ring today and ask anyone sitting there, what is your concept of God? And they would love to tell you their theory. There's usually no scoffing involved. But God remains abstract.

He remains a concept. And yet, when it comes to Jesus, the abstract has become concrete. The supernatural has entered the natural and people begin to scoff because the offensive thing about Jesus is that he is the point where my abstract theology, which demands nothing of me, is confronted with a decision. Will I believe that Jesus is the creator who has a right to judge me? Will I believe that God really came to earth to show me who he is when I would prefer to say he is distant, he's unattainable, we just don't have the power to comprehend him.

And if he has come to show me who he really is, then I must put aside all my made up religions, all my false gods, because I can only ever relate to him in the way that he has sovereignly determined that I must relate to him. The Greeks reject Paul's assertion that we can know God when he mentions the resurrection of Jesus because they are confronted with perhaps the most confronting question of all. Will I believe that God had to deal with my disobedient, sinful rejection of him by dying the eternal death that I should have died and taking my punishment upon him? Can I believe I'm really that ignorant? That for all of my life, I have lived in the reality of a darkened heart.

Have I really been that blind man fumbling around in the darkness, all the while claiming I know exactly who God is? The Greeks scoffed at the idea that someone had to die for us and then was given the power to come back to life again and they denied it for the same reason people do today. The concept of a supernatural God is fine, but the idea that God really cares enough about us to break into the natural world, that seems far fetched. It's easier to believe in a vague concept of going to heaven after we die because who can really disprove that? But in Jesus, the afterlife breaks into our time and space in his resurrection.

The unknown God has become known. And in Jesus, you now have a tangible thing that you either have to believe and bow your knee to or you must work really hard to ignore. It's safe to hide behind a concept about life after death, about a distant God and to speculate about the purpose of life, but in Jesus, all of those things have become concrete. And now, because of him, you must make a decision. The times of ignorance God has overlooked and he now commands all people everywhere to repent.

How can we know God? Well, by understanding that there is a God who made us and owns us. Secondly, that he has a purpose in mind for us and that is to know him. And finally, that we can and finally will know him in Jesus Christ who has shown him to us and through his death and his resurrection has opened a way for us to be reconciled, to be reunited, to have the veil lifted from our eyes, to know him. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that we may know you and approach you as our Father. And we thank you that in Jesus Christ we have seen the perfect revelation of all your goodness, of all your mercy, of all the things that we have even started saying to one another this morning in our worship. Lord Jesus, in you the abstract has become concrete. Lord, I pray for those who are listening, whether here or online, that the offer of seeing God, knowing God, and receiving him will be a real offer that is entered into today. For those of us who have been running after all sorts of false concepts, ideals, philosophies, meanings and purposes of life that are vain and empty, that amount to not much at all.

These gods that we are worshipping, may we realise with crystal clear clarity that they are pointless and will never satisfy us. There is complete and full joy in knowing God. And so, Lord, may we repent and believe and cast aside those idols, whether made from gold or silver or stone or made by concepts and pictures and theories. And then, Lord, for those of us who have come to know and who are encouraged again by the incredible love that we have seen in the face of Jesus, may we never ever forsake him.

May we never forget the great privilege, the great responsibility it is to know the living God. And may we, with boldness, with cleverness, with all the creative power that you have given us, bring this sacred message of the good news of Jesus Christ, like the church has done in aeons past. May we bring it to our neighbours and our friends and family, that they may also see as at least some of these Athenians saw what the glory and the majesty of this world, the beauty, the ingenuity, the intelligence of the human heart and mind, what all of these things are pointing to. And may they find all of those answers in the Lord Jesus. We bring these things before you, God, because they are huge, they are difficult, they can be overwhelming, but God, you are the God of the universe.

You are our creator and so you have all the power. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen.