3rd August 2008 PM 

GOD WHO CAN BE KNOWN    Pastor Colin Meadows

Acts 17:22-34, Hebrews 1:1-3 

Prime Convictions To discover who God is and how he wants us to live. Remember Blaise Pascal’s comment: ‘It is the heart which experiences God and not the reason.’ Seek after God thus with all your heart! 

Ø Altar to the unknown god  Our time in Europe last year was fascinating. Especially as we visited the ancient ruins of these famous cities.  In Athens, to visit the Acropolis just took my breath away, wandering around the Areopagus, imaging what may have taken place there when Paul visited. I thought of how Paul had wandered the city, listening and observing what took place. He saw the idols to the gods for the Greeks at that time worshipped twelve main gods. Each of the gods were thought to inhabit different regions in the city.

Around 600BC a terrible plague struck the city. We learn of the story from Ephimenides who wrote about what took place at that time. The people released sheep into the city in response to the plague and anywhere the sheep lay down the people  would offer a sacrifice to the god of that area. For instance, the area called Areopagus means ‘hill of Ares’, dedicated to the Greek god of thunder and war. Some sheep however lay down in a region that was not identified with any known Greek god. The people thus built an altar there to ‘the unknown god’. This god was one whose nature and name were unknown.           Later, when I moved on to Rome and was visiting the small museum at the Palatine Hill I came across this altar with the words in Greek…’to an unknown god.’ It stopped me in my tracks as I thought about Paul’s experience long ago in Athens! It then got me thinking about spirituality in Australia.

The Greeks had tried to package their spirituality into neat boxes, with one extra box to cover any leftovers. There were about fifty Greek gods, it is said, with twelve main ones:

Aphrodite – goddess of love, romance

Apollo – god of medicine and music

Ares – dark god of war and thunder

Artemis – goddess of nature and wildlife

Athena – goddess of wisdom and education

Demeter – goddess of agriculture and the harvest

Hephaestus – god of the working class, the fire and the forge

Hera – goddess of marriage and magic

Hermes – god of business and commerce

Hestia – goddess of home and family, of fertility

Poseidon – god of the sea, horses and earthquakes

Zeus – supreme lord of the gods, rain god who lives in the sky

In Australia we focus also on some of the lesser known Greek gods…

Nike – the god of victory and sport

Fama – the god of fame and good fortune

Hygea – goddess of health

Hades – god of the underworld

Eros – god of love

Hebe – goddess of youth.

But then there is also that twinge of uncertainty… that there is more, perhaps some ‘holy other’, some ‘higher power’, some spiritual being beyond our comprehension. Thus in order to cover all bases, so we quietly in the background have the altar ‘to the unknown god’.

It is here that the Bible cries out to us with complete certainty and great clarity.  God can be known! He is here and He is not silent. He can be known for He has revealed himself. This should give us great courage as we seek to discover who God is. What can we learn about God from the Bible? There are many places in the Bible we could look to but tonight we will confine ourselves to an incident in the Apostle Paul’s time while in Athens. What can we learn about God from this passage?

Paul was wandering around the city of Athens, amazed at all the idols. He met with Jews then with Greeks, Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. Ended up at the areopagus. Paul picked up on this theme in Acts 17 when he saw the altar called Agnostos Theos, to the unknown god. Paul thus cried out, ‘God can be known!” He then went on to explain who God is…

God is all powerful    God has shown amazing evidence of himself through what he had made. He is the powerful creator God of the universe, the one who is all powerful, or if you like big words, omnipotent. As such he is the sovereign God who rules supreme.

Acts 17:24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ”The creation reveals the creator. The unbelievable size of the universe just leaves me lost for words. Going to the NASA website and asking about the dimensions of the universe was interesting. The observable universe is about ten billion light years in radius, it is claimed, but what is observable may only be a small part of the whole! The total universe maybe 78 billion light years in diameter but no one really knows! All that is has come into being from the creative hand of God. God is thus all powerful or omnipotent beyond our wildest imagination.

Psalm 8:1, 3 “O LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!  When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”

God is truly amazing. The Bible, by the way, never tries to explain where God came from. How can you explain the eternal, that which has no beginning or end? God has always existed for he is eternal, outside of time. Any attempt to explain the origin of God is I feel a fruitless exercise. Instead let us reflect on the incredible power of God!

Ø God is self existent God did not need to create anything to be complete in himself.

Acts 17:25a “And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything…”

The all powerful God is by nature transcendent, existing separately from his creation in power and glory. He is the holy one, set apart from everything and from everyone else. He does not live in a temple. There is none like him! He is the holy other, complete in himself!

Ø God is all loving and kind He has demonstrated this by creating us and then by providing for all our needs.

Acts 17:25b “He himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.”

God chose to create us out of pure love, just for the sheer joy of it! He then day after day provides for all our needs. We lack nothing for God has provided all. We owe our very existence this day to God and him alone. The next breath you take is a gift from God. We are all dependent on him and not the other way round!

As Fulton Sheen commented ‘God does not love us because we are valuable. We are valuable because God loves us.’ Please remember too that God does not make junk. You are precious in his sight. Do you realize just how amazing the reckless, generous love of God is?

 Ø God is all knowing Nothing escapes God’s attention. He is in control of all things and his knowledge is complete. He is, in other words, omniscient.

Acts 17:26 “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”

 God is sovereign over history for he is omnipresent, present everywhere. God’s energizing power permeates every corner of the universe, day after day. He controls the events that affect our lives, the length of time we have on this planet for he is outside of time. History is His story! He is also omniscient, knowing all things. God is perfect in knowledge and thus knows all about us, including where we will live!  

Psalm 139:1-4 “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me, You know when I sit down and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.”

God complete knowledge of us does not mean that we are mere robots. We have free will to choose every day of our lives. God however, through his intimate knowledge of us, knows what our choices will be. Yes, God is all knowing.

Ø God longs for relationship with his creation He loves us so much and longs for a close intimate relationship. He is waiting for us to respond to his loving care and provision of our needs.  

Acts 17:27 “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out to him, though he is not far from each one of us.”

We have walked away from God, chosen to go in the opposite direction, but still he calls out to us to return. He is not far from each one of us, just a prayer away. What do we need to do?

Acts 17:30 “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.” 

God loves his creation but such love is not soft. It calls for our response, of repentance, of a total change of heart, of stopping walking away from God and starting walking in his ways. Of submitting to him in all our ways. He has provided the way back.

Acts 17:31 “For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”

 God has provided the way back into relationship though this man who was raised from the dead, Jesus! He is the key to all for …

Ø God is fully revealed in Jesus! If we want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. That is the clear witness of the Bible.

Heb 1:1-3 “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in many ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”

God has spoken to us through his Son, the Lord Jesus. He is heir of all things and is the creator of the universe. Thus he is God. He is the exact representation of God and sustains all things. Jesus is God with skin on.

John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. If you wish to draw close to God, seek to follow Jesus! Jesus is God in the flesh. Concerning this Jesus, the great reformer, Martin Luther, noted “In his life Christ is an example, showing us how to live; in his death he is a sacrifice, satisfying our sins; in his resurrection, a conqueror; in his ascension, a king; in his intercession, a high priest.”

To know Jesus is to know God. How can we know him? By coming like a child quietly into his presence, through prayer, humbling ourselves before him. In the quietness, tell Jesus what is on your heart. At the beginning I told the story of Ephimendides and the sheep who wandered around the city of Athens. Some of those sheep seemed totally uncertain and lay down in an unknown place. Perhaps you have wandered and you feel so far from God, a sheep in an unknown place. But God is near. He is only a prayer away. Why not talk to him right now!