September 27, 2020

Unknown god
September 27, 2020
Pastor Jonathan Falwell

It’s no fun to have taken the wrong road, especially without a GPS, and everything is unknown landmarks or road signs! Does someone have an example?

Open:

Life can be filled with unknowns, can’t it? Decisions that are not clear, commitments where we’re not sure what to do—life can be confusing. Or perhaps you’re trying to please everyone, but they all want different things, and you have no idea what to do! The philosophers of Athens were in constant confusion, trying to please all that they thought was a “god,” or the Stoics, who had no belief in any god. When Paul arrived, God immediately gave him the wisdom he needed to reach these men who were so confused. We start a new series today, to watch out for “unknown gods” in our lives.

Key Verse: Acts 17:30: Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent…

Focal Passage: Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 4:17

Refocusing on the one true God

  • Read Acts 17:23b. It is expected that people in foreign lands may never have heard of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, but do we in our country assume that many people are ignorant of the one true God? Do you know some personal examples?
  • What is a false god? If a god is anything that takes our mind off the one true God, what are some things that fill that definition in our lives?

The Creator of all

  • Read verses 24-25. What do these verses tell us about God? What does Genesis 1:1a tell us about Him? Read Isaiah 45:18. Is this the God you know?
  • Read John 1:1-5. How does this passage confirm the beginning of Genesis? Read Deuteronomy 4:39. What do both Old and New Testaments tell us?

Created to seek and worship Him

  • Read Acts 17:26. What is so pertinent about it that we need to heed? Read Malachi 2:10. What is so impactful about this verse, and its connection with verse 26 in Acts? What does this verse in Malachi ask us?
  • If Scripture tells us that we are all made from one blood, what do you think God feels about our racism? Do you recall how you were raised to think of other nationalities? How can we promote love between people groups?
  • How can racism work both ways? Read James 3:14-15. While this applies to wisdom, how can we liken it to the strife among the nationalities today?
  • Read 2 Chron. 15:2. What are the primary ways we can seek Him? What are the primary ways in which we worship Him? Read Deut.8:19. How does God feel about leaving our total commitment for Him and worship “things”?
  • Read Acts 17: 27-28. What are we to do? Read Isaiah 43:7. Why were we created? Read Hebrews 7:19, 25. What can we do to be close to God? Read Romans 12:1. What did God create us to do?

Close: 

Do you get perturbed when someone insinuates that you have put something above your commitment to God? Probably the truthful answer is yes, because it is so easy to look at a warm, sunny day and feel the golf course calling you, or the river where you love to put in your boat, or the beach (although the “calling” is the voice of Satan). We don’t consider a couple of Sundays a month as putting God second in our affections.

If you’ve had a personal experience of watching a new mom with her baby, you’ve seen how hard it is for her to let someone else take care of it, hold it, feed it, or the myriad of things one needs to do with the newborn. Poor or rich, usually a mom will sit for as long as possible while holding, rocking or tending to that baby. That is a love that transcends almost all others. (This is definitely a generalization in this day and time). That is the type of love God has for us, and the type we are to have for Him! What He did for us is something we can’t even fathom. Have any of us seen heaven? Jesus did. It is His dwelling place, but He had so much love for us that He was willing to leave it, walk this earth for thirty-three years, be beaten until He no long resembled a man (Isaiah 52:14), and be crucified on a cruel cross, He was buried in a borrowed tomb. Just for us. Just for love’s sake. The amazing news is that He came out of the grave and walked and talked with people He knew for forty days before ascending back to heaven.

Does that deserve your utmost love? In Revelation 2:4-5, God tells the church at Ephesus that they have left their first love. That love that consumed them when they first realized what Jesus had done for them. Do you still feel that kind of love? Do you daily ask Him to be your All in All, filling you with His love—especially love for those who do not deserve it? After all, we didn’t deserve it—but He saved us.

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