Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - To an Unknown God

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

The culture in which Christianity was born was every bit as skeptical of the claims of Christianity as ours is. But the case for Christianity was made so strongly that skeptical people believed in numbers so great that it changed the entire Roman culture.  There’s no better place to see the case that changed the whole Roman Empire than the book of Acts. Within it, there are a number of spots where Paul or Peter make the case, including this famous spot where Paul speaks to the intellectual elites on Mars Hill in the Areopagus.  This text shows three aspects to the persuasive power of gospel: 1) the cultural, 2) the intellectual, and 3) the personal. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on October 19, 2003. Series: The Necessity of Belief. Scripture: Acts 17:16-34. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. We live in an increasingly fragmented culture, one in which it's more and more difficult to come to a consensus about what's true and what's right. As Christians, how do we navigate the challenges of living among competing worldviews and systems of thought? Join us as Tim Keller teaches on how we can live faithfully and wisely in this cultural moment. Tonight's scripture reading is from Acts chapter 17 verses 16 through 34. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in

the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, What is this babbler trying to say? Others remarked, He seems to be advocating foreign gods. They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, May we know what this new teaching is that you are preaching, presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean. All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening

to the latest ideas. Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription, To an unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown, I am going to proclaim to you. 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. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and

breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he determined the time set for them and the exact places Where they should live God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him Though he is not far from each one of us for in him We live and move and have our being as some of your own poets have said, we are his offspring. Therefore, since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by man's design and skill. In the past, God overlooked

such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 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." When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, We want to hear you again on this subject. At that, Paul left the council. A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus,

also a woman named Demaris, and a number of others. This is God's word. Now we often hear people say, you know, today it's very difficult to believe in Christianity because our culture is much more skeptical of the claims of Jesus, very skeptical and therefore it's very very difficult or even impossible to believe in Christianity and its claims today. But the culture in which Christianity was born was every bit as skeptical, every bit as hostile to the claims of Christianity. And therefore, it was every bit as difficult for thoughtful people back then to believe, if not more. But the case for Christianity was made so strongly

that skeptical people believed in numbers so great that it changed the entire Roman culture. The case, even though the old culture was every bit as skeptical as people are today, every bit as resistant and sympathetic, hostile to the claims of Christianity as today. But in spite of that, the case for Christianity was made so strongly that skeptical people believed in such numbers that the whole Roman Empire was changed. Now we need to know that case, don't we?

Because we live in a very skeptical culture and we ourselves are skeptical or we're surrounded by friends who are skeptical. We need to know what that case is. And the case, there's no better place to see the case that swept and changed that whole Roman Empire than the Book of Acts. Because first of all, it was written to Theophilus, who was a culturally and intellectually sophisticated man, and the Book of Acts was written to him to help him believe, to help him be sure, to help him see it was true. So the Book of Acts is a case, a version of the case that

swept the old Roman Empire, and within the Book of Acts is a case, a version of the case that swept the Old Roman Empire and within the book of Acts you have a number of different places, different cases, different spots where you see Paul or Peter or someone else make the case, including this very famous spot where Paul speaks to the intellectual elites on Mars Hill in the Areopagus. Now what we actually see in this text is three aspects to the persuasive power of the gospel, the power that was so persuasive it changed that whole culture. And those three parts of the persuasiveness of the gospel is its cultural, its intellectual, and its personal persuasiveness and power.

We see here the cultural power of the gospel, the intellectual power of the gospel, and the personal power of the gospel. Let's look at them just as we go through the text. First of all, you have the cultural power of the gospel. Paul was waiting in Athens and he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-freed Greeks as well as in the marketplace, day by day with those who happened to be there. Now Athens was, though it was no longer a military power, it was the chief city of Greece but it was conquered by Rome, but it was still the intellectual and cultural center of the

Roman Empire, the whole Roman world. That's where the intellectual elites lived. And the center of the cultural center was the Agora. Now this is translated marketplace. The Agora was the marketplace. But trouble is in English the word marketplace just gives us the impression of something like a shopping district.

But boy, it was a lot more than that. When Paul went to the Aguirre, he was going to something far more than a shopping district. First of all, it was the media center. Because how, before newspapers, televisions, radios, how did you get to know the news? You had to go to the Aguirre, where the heralds were each day giving the bulletins and announcements so it was the media center it was the financial center because you didn't you didn't even have paper money you certainly didn't have the normal ways of doing community ways we have now of communication so it was that it was the stock market you this is where the investors met the business owners and

they shook face to face it was the media center it was the financial center it was the art center because that's where the artists actually did their work and performed. And it was the intellectual center. See, there were no journals, there were no editorial pages. Where did new ideas, political, philosophical, or whatever, where did new ideas get debated? Where did they get worked out on? It was literally in the agora. Where did new ideas get debated? Where did they get worked out? And it was literally in the agora. Where did Paul go with the gospel? Did he go only to, on the Sabbath day, the place where people were worshipping? Yes, we see that. But he also took the gospel downtown.

He also took the gospel into the very place where society's culture was produced. He took it into the public square. He took it into the public cultural center. He took it into the marketplace of ideas. Every day it says reasoning. It's a word that means a Socratic dialogue, engaging, interacting with the people in the cultural center. Now, that's pretty interesting, isn't it?

Now, right away, if you're a Christian, you're saying, well, what does this mean for me? Does this mean you expect me, if I'm gonna follow Paul's example, must I go and preach in the street? Well, no, for two reasons. Number one, you're missing the point, because today we don't have a spot, a literal physical spot that is the financial and the cultural and the artistic and the intellectual.

We don't have a place like that. We don't have a place like that. And besides that, Paul was called to be a public communicator and most Christians are not. It's not your gifting, it's not your calling. But the principle, here is the principle. If you understand the gospel and if you live consistently with it, it will not stay in your private world. It will not stay in your worship services. It will not stay on Sunday. If you understand the gospel and you live in accordance with the gospel, the gospel

itself will affect the way you live in every area of your life, including and especially your public life, your and especially your public life, your life in the public square. Let me give you a couple quick examples of this. First of all, last year we talked about this famous Bible narrative, you know the famous place where Peter, Andrew, James, and John are fishing.

And Jesus shows up and by his power, they get the most enormous, miraculously large catch of fish in their lives. Now don't forget, because they're fishermen, the moment of the greatest fishing catch of their lives is the most lucrative moment in their lives. The most lucrative moment in their careers. And that's the moment where their lives, the most lucrative moment in their careers. And that's the moment where Jesus says, follow me and I will make you become

fishers of men. And is the point that every Christian is supposed to leave their secular jobs and become missionaries? Not at all, not at all. But here's what it is saying. When you meet Christ you get a fishing beyond your fishing. You know you're an agent of the kingdom of God that's coming to healing the world, to heal the whole world. You've got a mission beyond your job. You have a fishing beyond your fishing, and you get a wealth beyond your wealth. You have an inheritance in glory.

All the money in the world is just the dimmest hint of something like that, the dimmest echo of it. And when you get a wealth beyond your wealth, and when you get a fishing beyond your fishing, your attitude to your job, your attitude toward your money changes. You can walk away from it. That doesn't mean you necessarily stop working. What it means is you don't need the profit, you don't need the achievement, you're utterly changed in your attitude toward your money. It's not the main thing anymore. Your attitude toward your money. It's not the main thing anymore. Your attitude toward your career, it's not the main thing anymore.

It doesn't control you, there's a new freedom. And it definitely changes the way you work, the way you relate to your coworkers, the way you relate to people under you in your job, or the way you just spend your money and use your money in the world. Absolutely affects your public life. The gospel does not just simply give

you peace and warmth in your private world. It affects the way you live in every area of life. Let me give you an example at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum. Nicholas Kristof, who writes an op-ed column for the New York Times editorial page twice a week usually, very influential, very smart guy. He went to Africa and just six weeks ago he wrote this column and in Africa one of the things that he saw which is something that is getting more publicity now is that in large parts of the world Christianity, born-again Christianity if you want if you will, is spreading like wildfire.

Millions of people are becoming Christians. And when he went there and he looked at so many of the social problems in Africa, he saw Christians dealing with them. He saw orphanages, hospitals, places that cared for aid sufferers, all being run by, pushed by, supported by Christians. And here's what the most interesting part. This is a quote from his column. Pentecostals who make up one of the fastest growing churches in Africa, give a substantial

voice in church to ordinary village women. And that in turn empowers women in the home and in the community. In our Mozambican culture, women don't have an active voice in the family, explained Ana Zaidah, who teaches at a Bible school. But in Christian life, we discover that not just the husband, but also the wife gets the spirit. Not only the husband, but also the wife has gifts, has a role. So wives fight to transform their husbands.

And here's, this is the last line in the column, believe it or not, New York Times says, While it sounds strange to say so, evangelicals may be Africa's most important feminist influence today. Now what is he seeing? I'm not sure he knows what he's seeing. I'll tell you what he's seeing. I'll tell you what he's seeing. When you tell a poor African woman the gospel, what is the gospel? Everybody in the world is equally lost. Everyone in the world is equally lost. It doesn't matter if you're pedigree, it

doesn't matter if you're race, male and female, rich and poor, everyone is lost. But through Christ, you can receive a salvation that is based not on your pedigree, not on your background, not on your record, not on your accomplishments or your achievements. Absolutely loved, apart from who you are, apart from what you have done. And therefore, everyone in the state of grace is equally loved everyone is because everyone was equally lost that is the most radically egalitarian doctrine on the face of the earth and do you think if you tell a poor African

woman who in her community has always been treated as someone very very unimportant if if that comes into the center of her being, that's only going to give her happiness in her private life. It's going to utterly affect the way in which she lives in every area of her life. The way she thinks of herself, the way she lives as a citizen. And Nicholas Christoph is seeing it, and of course all sorts of other people are seeing it too. It doesn't really matter whether you're a rich or a poor person. If the gospel is grasped, it will not just give you private world happiness.

It will have to affect the way in which you do everything, including your public life. It has cultural power, it has cultural shaping power. If it doesn't have cultural shaping power, in your life you don't get it. You don't really believe it. So first of all we see the cultural power of the gospel. Secondly, we see the intellectual power of the gospel because we see here in verse 18 a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to dispute with him and then they said we want to know more about what you're teaching so they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus. And then Paul stood up at the meeting of the Areopagus and spoke. Now here's what's going on. The Epicureans and the Stoics were the two leading philosophical schools. They were the cultural elites. They were the intellectual

elites. And both of them had rejected traditional religion. Both of them did really not believe in the traditional gods. They didn't pray, they didn't worship, they didn't go to temples, they didn't do sacrifices. They turned away from that completely. And they were intrigued, though, by what Paul was saying in the Agora. So they invited him to the Areopagus. The Areopagus was the council of Athens.

It was the town council. And therefore it was the most venerableagos was the council of Athens. It was the town council. And therefore it was the most venerable. It was the most accomplished. The intellectual elite, the financial elite, it was the elite of the city, which was the intellectual and cultural capital of the empire. And they asked Paul to say, tell us this message.

Do you realize this is the equivalent of being asked, and Evangelos being asked, to address the combined faculties of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton at once? What does he say? What's the case? How does he make the case? It's extremely important, and he makes two points. He makes the case revolves around basically two poles, the big contradiction and the bodily

resurrection. The two points he brings to this incredibly skeptical audience, and I wish I had the time to go through it verse by verse, it's a fascinating and brilliant address in which he starts off agreeing with them, rightly so, because he can agree with them about idolatry and about religion and so forth. But he basically moves to make these two points, the big contradiction and the bodily resurrection. The big contradiction is the first point which he mentions up here. What do I mean by that? Let's look at it.

It's in verse 23, I found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. Now what you worship as something unknown I proclaim to you. What he's actually saying here though, he literally says, that which you unknowingly reverence. Literally he says, that which you unknowingly reverence. Literally he says, that which you unknowingly reverence, the God you unknowingly reverence, I proclaim to you. Now that's amazing. He's speaking to the Stoics and the Epicureans. The Epicureans believed that the gods were remote and uninvolved

in life. The Stoics didn't believe in a god really at all. Just a sort of general spirit out there. And what he says to them is he says, the God I proclaim to you is a God that you unknowingly reverence. You know him, but you don't know him. Or put it this way, you deny him with your mouth and your mind, but you affirm him in your life. You say with your mind and your mouth, he's not there. But you live as if he is there, unavoidably. The great contradiction, see it's very, very paradoxical.

The word knowledge is used all the way through the text, over and over again in different ways. He's saying you know and you don't know him. You unknowingly reverence him. You deny him with your mouth, but you affirm him with your life. And what is this God that they affirm? He's saying to these, they must have been amazed when he said that. You see, you philosophers, you say you're secular, you say you don't believe in God, but you do. If you have the eyes to see it, if you're willing to admit, you live as if he's there even though you deny him with your mind and your mouth.

What God is this that they know but don't know? That they deny but affirm? That they say is not there but they live as if it is there? He mentions them, he says he's a judge. He's a God of moral absolutes who will judge the world. Now how does this spin out? I mean, how does this argument, it's a fascinating argument. He's not trying to prove God to them, he's trying to prove, he's not trying to prove God to them rationally. Instead what he's trying to show them is that they already believe

in God and they won't admit it. They've already know it at a certain level. That which you unknowingly reverence. They already are living that way. So how would you do this? Well, let me give you an example from the academic world, and let me give you an example from popular culture of what he means, this big contradiction. If you don't acknowledge God, you live with this fundamental contradiction in your own life. If you just see it, then that can be a key to helping you find God. How can we understand the meaning of life's milestones through the lens of the gospel?

In the How to Find God series, Tim Keller offers three short books on birth, marriage, and death that will help you understand the meaning of these milestones within God's vision of life, with biblical insight for how the scripture teaches us to face each one. These books of pastoral care are designed for specific life situations you or someone you know will go through. When you give to Gospel in Life during the month of April, we'll send you the How to Find God series as our thanks for your support of this ministry.

To receive this short three-book set, simply make a gift at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Your gift helps us share the message of Christ's love all over the world. So thank you for partnering with us because the gospel truly changes everything. So, for example, academic example, an anthropologist wrote an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, 1995. I read it there then. I've come to see that it's actually on the Internet and is used quite a lot now, referenced quite a lot.

It's called Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights. Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights. It's a very interesting article written by an anthropologist. You can get it, you can see it online tonight if you feel like it. But here's the essence of it. The anthropologist said, for many years I felt trapped between my anthropologist's understanding and the claims of human rights. Trapped between my anthropologist's understanding and the claims of human rights. What does she mean? Well, she explains in the article that she is an expert in the cultures of the Sudan. And in the cultures of the Sudan, for many years she studied things that she knew that

Western people, and her two, she too, as a Western person, found repugnant. One of the things that she saw that was an accepted practice in the Sudan was what's called female circumcision. Other people call it mutilation, who are critics of it. Another is honor killing. That in the Sudan it is an accepted practice that if a younger member of a family, son or daughter, is found guilty of sexual misconduct, misconduct that the overall community considers misconduct, then it is right and expected that the family will kill the son or daughter to maintain their honor and standing in the community. And this is

done all the time. This anthropologist said, I always felt trapped between cultural, my cultural anthropology understanding and human rights. Why? Well, because cultural anthropology is a secular discipline. It's based on a secular worldview. And it says all we have here is the natural. There's no supernatural, there's no God as far as we're concerned. All we have is the natural. So when you look at cultures, here's what the anthropologists know. That those cultures that we find repugnant are cultures that put the corporate need over the individual right. What the community, the family, the tribe is much more important than the individual right. Here in the West,

we see individual rights have to be protected over and against the family, the tribe, or the corporate, right? So we have a completely different approach. We find what they do repugnant. Okay. They find the way we live repugnant. And the anthropologist says there's absolutely no way to judge which of these is is a writer set of values, right? However, she goes on and says one day something happened. She says, finally I came to realize that there was a moral agenda

larger than myself, larger than Western culture, larger than the rules of my discipline. And I decided to join my colleagues from other disciplines to fight and work against these practices in the Sedan. Now that is a remarkable statement for a cultural anthropologist to make, absolutely remarkable. What she is saying is she discerns a moral agenda, a set of moral standards, bigger than any culture, bigger than all cultures, that sits in judgment on all cultures. And by these moral standards she knows that what's going on in the Sudan is wrong. That's an amazing thing for a cultural anthropologist to say. Where do you get that moral standard? If it doesn't come out of culture, where does it come from?

And here's her answer, but listen carefully to her answer. She says, yes, many people still ask me this fundamental question. What authority do we Westerners have to impose our own concept of individual rights on the rest of humanity? But this culturally relativistic argument is used by repressive governments to deflect international criticism of their abuse of their citizens and therefore it must be rejected. Did you listen carefully? She just punted. Somebody comes to her and says, okay, you're still a secular cultural anthropologist.

What authority have you got to say that your values are more important than theirs? Or where do you get this moral agenda that's bigger than all cultures? Where do you get it? And what she says is, I just know it's there. I just know it's there. But where could it be from if she just knows it's there? She doesn't have the support inside her worldview for her own moral commitments, but she just knows she has to have them. Or put it this way, according to cultural anthropology, what makes

everything about you and me is a result of evolution. What is that? It's a process of the survival of the fittest. It's a process of the survival of the fittest. It's a process of natural selection. In other words, at the very heart of nature is the strong trampling the weak, the strong organisms eating the weak organisms, the strong species trampling on the weak species. That's the heart of nature. That's utterly natural. And yet she knows, and so do we, that there's something wrong about that. That strong humans should not trample weak humans. That strong nations should not trample weak nations.

It's utterly natural, but it's abnormal. Well, let me ask you a quick question. See, what she's really saying here then is, she has discerned a moral agenda that's not just bigger than all cultures, but that's bigger than nature. How could you know that nature is broken or abnormal unless you get a standard from outside nature, from super nature, a supernatural, it would have to be a supernatural standard. But of course, according to culture anthropology, there couldn't be a supernatural standard,

but she knows it's there. What would Paul say to her? He would say, do you know the answer to this question? When your premise that there is no supernatural in God leads you to a conclusion that you know isn't true, that there's no human rights, why not change the premise? Why won't they do that? Because what they know, they don't know. Because on the one hand, they affirm down deep what they deny up here. In other words, because they unknowingly reverence God.

This is the reason you have a premise that you lead to a conclusion, no, it isn't true, but you're going to hold to the premise and the conclusion, even though it's an amazing contradiction. Why? Because you unknowingly reverence Him. You will always live with this kind of contradiction in the midst of your life until you acknowledge that He's there. What you affirm, what you deny, excuse me, with your mouth, you affirm with your life until you acknowledge that he's there. What you affirm, what you deny, excuse me, with your mouth, you affirm with your life. You say he's not there, but you live

as if he is there. Unavoidably live as if he's there. You have to. You can't not know he's there. Let me give you an example from popular culture. I read this, I didn't see this show. I read about this in an interesting article. This article talks about when Howard Stern was on Jay Leno's Tonight Show. When Howard Stern had written a book, you know, about his life and he was on there hawking the book. Interestingly enough, here's what the article says, Howard Stern repeatedly provoked Leno

with language and behavior that pushed way past the rules of live network television. Now, you know, of course, Leno could get in terrific trouble if he says and if things are said and done on his show that go way past the boundaries of propriety. I mean, we all know there are certain boundaries for live network television. And of course, Howard Stern was blowing right by them and just trying like crazy, daring Jay Leno to make a moral judgment and say, stop that,

you shouldn't be saying that. And here's what the writer says. He says, Stern repeatedly dared him to play the role of the moralist who presumes to tell others how to live. The usually unflappable Leno was visibly disturbed. Wanting to avoid having to make any moral judgments, he tried to change the subject and started sorting through a bag of bestselling books that included

Stern's autobiography. Refusing to be silenced, Stern praised his own book, but degraded and trashed every other book that Leno retrieved and resolutely persisted in challenging Leno to make some moral judgment. What Stern did not see was the inordinate amount of moral zeal with which he did this. He was extremely self-righteous in his denunciation of everyone else's self-righteousness. He was absolutely moralistic in his insistence that no one else could make moral pronouncements.

It was wrong. In short, Stern embodied the contradiction of our culture in living and vivid color. We publicly declare all values to be constructed, and we profess therefore a morality that is thin and lightweight, but daily experience itself retains a moral thickness and weight that contradicts the logic of the culture. The truly significant moment came as the show was going to a commercial break. Exasperated with stern, Leno reached into the bag

one more time and pulled out one more book, turned out to be a Bible. And for one brief moment, Leno became a prophet, holding it up and looking into the camera. Leno said simply, suddenly everything in this book makes perfect sense. What you deny though, you will affirm. What you deny with the mouth, you always affirm.

You might say, no one should make any moral judgments. What would be wrong with that? If there was no such thing as a moral judge. You can't not know that there's something wrong. Not just that this feels to be wrong, it is wrong. It's not just that we have moral feelings. Well, I feel this is wrong and I feel that is wrong. Our feeling is that some people are doing things wrong whether they believe it or not, they're wrong. And that couldn't happen unless there was the God. And that means there's the big contradiction. Very, very powerful, very powerful argument. Secondly, though, Paul makes at the end of the whole talk the argument of the bodily resurrection. The big contradiction and the bodily resurrection.

At the very end he says, and it's very strong, he says he has given proof of all this by raising Jesus from the dead. Proof. Now we talked about this last week so I won't be anywhere near as long but let me give it to you in a nutshell. What is this argument extremely important to Paul? Proof he says. And here it is. Paul says if Jesus, here it is, if Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, if Jesus Christ was bodily physically raised from the dead, declaring himself to be the son of God,

then you realize it doesn't matter whether you understand why God allows evil and suffering in the world. It doesn't matter that you don't know what happens to all the people who die never hearing about Jesus. It doesn't really matter that Christianity doesn't really work for you or that you've been so turned off by so many hypocrites. It doesn't really matter that there's't really work for you or that you've been so turned off by so many hypocrites. It doesn't really matter that there's certain things

that Christianity seems to ask of you that don't seem to fit in with your deepest desires and wishes. It doesn't matter what you feel. It doesn't matter whether it works for you. It doesn't matter whether you have all the answers or not. If he's standing there risen, you've got to believe in him. You can drop all your problems. You can drop all your objections

and all the things that bother you about Christianity. Did he rise from the dead? If so, then you have to submit to him, you have to believe in him. Well, you say, I'm not sure I do believe in the resurrection of Christ. Well, that's fine. But then you realize you have to have a historically possible alternate explanation for how the Christian church started. All the early followers of Christ lived in a world in which the only, the two world views, Greek world view and the Jewish world view, were so utterly, utterly,

so utterly opposed to the very idea of a physical resurrection. You can see the Greeks, when they even got to the resurrection, they sneered and stopped the whole discourse. And the Jews, some Jews believed in a resurrection of all people at the end of time, but nobody could even imagine or would even think that it would be possible for one person to be physically raised from the dead

in the middle of history with all the rest of death and destruction just continuing to go on. In other words, there were tons of Messiah types around Jesus' time, many of whom were killed by authorities. Nobody even breathed the idea of a resurrection. Why? Because it wouldn't have occurred to anybody. Because it was unthinkable and absurd. Yet you have to, since you don't believe in the resurrection of Trace, you have to account for how at a time in which all the worldviews had no room for the resurrection, hundreds of followers of Jesus said they saw him.

Hundreds. Immediately after his death, they immediately began to proclaim that they'd seen him, that he appeared to them over and over and over again. Dozens of times, to hundreds of people. This was unanimous. All the Christians believed it. It happened overnight.

They said they saw him, and they spent all the rest of their lives Proclaiming that and dying for their belief you explain then you account for that you have to come up with a historically possible Alternate explanation for the birth of the church if you don't believe Jesus rose from the dead and it's extremely hard and the more Go ahead try and you'll start to see how much you're struggling and you'll start to realize you're struggling against the evidence. Paul makes this incredible case. This is the case that was made in that world and the reason why so many skeptical people believed it. The big contradiction that we really believe in God down deep if we'll admit it and we can't not know it in the way in which we live. The bodily resurrection,

there's no historically possible alternate explanation for the birth of the Christian Church. So there you have the cultural power and secondly you have the intellectual power. But last of all, the most powerful aspect of the persuasiveness of the gospel we haven't gotten to, and neither did Paul. You see, why did so few people believe? You notice how it ends? It says a few men became followers of Paul.

Just a few, a handful. That's interesting. So, I mean, if the gospel, it isn't my whole point, the gospel is so persuasive, why wasn't it that not very many people believed at that point? And the answer is, they stopped him before his last point. Ooh, I would hate that. I'm a preacher and you can't stop my last point. In fact, in most cases, if it wasn't for the last point,

the rest of the sermon doesn't really make much sense. Now, you see, Paul had done three things. He's already said, there's a God, he's a creator, he's a judge, and he sent Jesus Christ, and they sneered and it stopped. He never got to his last point. Well, what would his last point have been? Well, you see, if this God is the great creator,

and he's a judge, and he sent Jesus. Why did he send Jesus? Why did he send this man that he rose from the dead? Why did he come? Just to judge us? Is there any hope? What would Paul's third point have been? And I want you to know that his third point is the most persuasive part of the Gospel. Well, you say, but we don't know what it is because it never happened, but we do.

We know what it is, because it never happened, but we do. We know what it would have been. Because in verse 18, Luke actually tells us. Luke uses an extremely carefully chosen pregnant word in verse 18. He says, when Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

Now the word distressed is pretty interesting. It's an unusual word and it's a word paroxysm, which means to be actually ripped with contradictory feelings. Contradictory feelings, strong contradictory feeling. It's a complex feeling word. And it is the word used in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint, when God sees his people committing spiritual adultery with idols. Now here's why it's so complex. Will you think a new thought with me here, friends? Modern people think of God, they want to believe in a God who is simply loved. Nice and simple, he just accepts everybody, whatever. Jerry Seinfeld God, they want to believe in a God who is simply loved. Nice and simple, he just accepts everybody, whatever.

Jerry Seinfeld God, everybody. They believe in a simple love who just accepts everybody. Traditional religion gives us a very simple God who says, you obey me or I will smite you. So you either have the simple loving God of the modern mind, you have the simple angry God of the traditional religion, but the Bible gives us a complex God. Here's why. Paul was so much like his master, the Lord, that Luke was telling us, Paul lived out a miniature version of the gospel. When Paul saw a city filled with idols, he was filled with a complex emotion.

Of what? It wasn't simple love, it wasn't simple anger. It's the complex love that comes when you see people you deeply love destroying themselves. If you have ever loved somebody and seen them destroying themselves by looking for love in the wrong places, what do you feel? It's not simple, it's complex. You're angry at them, but you're angry with them out of love. This is a very complex feeling.

It's a very complex emotion. But Paul is living out the gospel. He's just a miniature version of the gospel. What is the gospel? God looked down on the earth and saw an earth filled with idols and all of our hearts filled with idols. And here's what he said.

He had a complex emotion. He says, I love you, but I've lost you. I made you for myself and you're giving yourself to other things. You're building your life on everything else. And as a result, these things are too small for your soul. So they're emptying you, they're draining you, they're enslaving you.

I love you, they're draining you, they're enslaving you. I love you but I lost you, but I love you too much to let you destroy yourself. I'm coming. I'm coming to win you back. I'm coming to get you. That's the third point of the sermon. Jesus Christ did not come to judge. Jesus Christ came to bear judgment because on the cross we have the most ultimate example of complex love. Because on the one hand the cross shows

us a Jesus Christ who is so angry at sin, angry that he would die to pay its penalty, but so in love with us and attracted that he was glad to die. So angry at sin that he had to die. So attracted to you and me that he was glad to die. And you see, when you see him doing that, when you realize he's doing that, that changes you. The spousal love of God, the complex love of God, embodied in Jesus Christ, made available because of the work in Jesus Christ, made available because of the work of Jesus Christ. That is what will change you.

And that's the reason why John Donne said in that famous holy sonnet, take me to you, imprison me, for I, unless you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me." But when you're ravished and enthralled by this love, this complex love of what Jesus did on the cross, then you're free. I'll never be free unless you enthrall me. You're free from everything else, anything else that was controlling you. You're free. That's the last point of the sermon. And that is the most persuasive

part of the gospel. The spousal love. The spousal love of God through Jesus Christ. And see, there's the three parts of the persuasion. This is how it works. I've lived in New York for a long time and I've seen this go through people's lives over and over and this is how it works. It works in reverse order to the a long time and I've seen this go through people's lives over and over and this is how it works. It works in reverse order to the way in which I preached it. The personal love, pardon me, the personal power of God is the spousal love offered in the gospel. When you hear about this, you say, I wish it were true.

Then you move to the intellectual power of the gospel and you look at the big contradiction and the bodily resurrection until you see it is true. Then it comes into your life as you embrace it and it develops cultural power in your life and when people see the cultural power of the gospel in our lives as Christians they say, what does this babbler have to say? So you see the personal power leads to the intellectual power, leads to the cultural power, leads people back to ask the question, what the gospel and that's how it works do you not see let me just ask you quickly this friends is the passionate love of

God for you so burning in your heart that it drives you out in service and love, complex love, into the marketplace, like it did Paul. Those early Christians loved that old violent, brutal culture to death. They loved it to death. They loved it until it died. They loved it until the brutality died, until the violence died. You know that? They loved it until it died., until the violence died, do you know that? They loved it until it died. That was the case that swept through

so many skeptical people's doubts and converted them. We can love our culture until it changes too. Let us pray. Father, we ask that you would show us how to make these things real in our lives. Those of us who need the intellectual power, those of us who need to give the gospel its cultural power in our lives, those of us who really haven't even begun to understand the personal power of the spousal love of God in Jesus Christ, we pray that these persuasive aspects of the power of the gospel would change us, and we pray that you would help us to love our culture until it changes. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you for joining us today. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, please rate and review it so more people can discover the Gospel in Life podcast. This month's sermons were recorded in 2003. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel in Life podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. Music