The Apostle Paul is in Athens. Paul
traveled a lot, spreading the message of Jesus Christ wherever he felt God
leading him to go. He’s in Athens, in Greece, and he walks around the
city, trying to get a feel for the place.
At this time the people of Athens did not have the idea
that there was one God. They thought there were lots of gods. Their
idea was that the gods went in for specialization. There was a god for
this, a god for that, a god for just about everything you could think of.
And Paul sees statues and idols and such to honor all these different
gods. And then, Paul sees one that has this inscription, “to an unknown
god.”
See, the people of Athens wanted to make sure they had all
their bases covered. They were worshiping every god they could think of,
every god they knew about or even suspect might be there. But they
thought, well, what if we missed one? So, just to make sure, they thought
they’d better also put something up to honor this unknown god, too. Just
to play it safe, you know?
We read that, and maybe we think that sounds like of
strange. Maybe even silly. How can you worship an unknown
god? How can you worship a god you don’t know anything about? In
fact, why would you even want to? What we be the point of it? “O
unknown god--please do--um--whatever it is you do. Please help us
in--well--in whatever way it is you can help us. Please give us the
benefit of--whatever it is that you can give us the benefit of.” How
strange would that be?
And yet, how many people do you know who do that
today? How many people are there who worship a God they don’t really
know? In fact, how many of us, as Christians, can really say that we know
the God we worship?
Now, on one level, this is inevitable. In many ways,
God is beyond our ability to understand. God is greater and bigger and
more of--well, everything, really--than we could ever get our minds
around. We can describe God--we can use words like holy and righteous and
all-powerful and all-knowing and all-wise. He can use words like
omnipotent and omniscient omnipresent. We can talk about the trinity--God
the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. But how in the world
that works, how God does what God does, how God can be what God is, we really
don’t have much of a clue. The only way we could fully understand God is
to be God, and of course we’re not. We’re not anywhere close, and we
never will be, at least not while we’re on earth.
We cannot fully understand God, but we can understand
enough. And so could the people of Athens. So Paul started telling
them about God, this God who was unknown to them. And the things Paul
tells them about God are important for us to know, too.
He starts out by calling God “the God who made the world
and everything in it.” That’s one of the most basic Christian beliefs
that there is, but let’s think about it. “The God who made the world and
everything in it.” Everything you and I will ever see or hear or touch or
taste or smell was made by God, or at least it was made from the things God
made. There was nothing in the world, there was not even a world for
there to be nothing in, until God made it.
That tells us what power God has. But it also tells
us something else. It tells us that God existed before the world
began. I mean, if God made it, then God must have been here before it,
right? And so, logically, God will still be around after the world comes
to an end someday. This tells us that God is eternal, with no beginning
and no end. Just that is a hard thing to understand. But it’s true.
Paul goes on to call God “the Lord of heaven and
earth.” So, not only did God create everything, God is in control of
everything. After a lord, any lord, is someone who has power and control
over whatever he’s lord of. So, by calling God “the Lord of heaven and
earth”, Paul says God has power and control over heaven and earth.
Nothing can ever happen, either in heaven or on earth, that God does not allow
to happen.
Paul goes on to say that God “is not served by human hands,
as if He needed anything.” We maybe need to think about that a little
bit. After all, don’t we talk all the time about how we need to serve
God? How can we be serving God if God is not served by human hands?
How does that work?
Well, I think both statements are true. We do serve
God, but God does not need our service. I think we serve God the way a
little kid “helps” Mom and Dad around the house or in the yard or in the
field. Mom and Dad don’t need the help--in fact, they could probably get
things done faster if the kid was not there. But they allow the kid to
help, partly out of a desire to teach, but mostly just out of love. They
love their children and like having them around. They like seeing them
try to help, even when their “help” is not really much help at all. I
think that’s how our service to God is. As Paul says, there’s nothing we
can do for God that God could not do without us. But God allows us to
serve, partly out of a desire to teach us, but mostly just out of love for
us. God likes seeing us try to help, even when our “help” is not really
much help at all.
Paul goes on to tell them that God “made all the nations,
that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he marked out their appointed time
in history and the boundaries of their lands.”
Again, that points to God being eternal. We think of
that as meaning God lives forever, and it does, but it means more than
that. It means that God stands outside of time. God can see the
entire sweep of human history all at once. God knows everything that has
happened, everything that is happening, and everything that is going to
happen. God sees the rise and fall of empires. God saw it all
before it ever happened. And God knows how it all comes out.
I think that should give us hope. More than that, it
should give us confidence. We’ve all been kind of discombobulated by this
coronavirus. A lot of things we could on, that we considered a fixed part
of our lives, are not there now. And we don’t know if some of them are
coming back--maybe they will, but maybe they won’t. And that leaves us
feeling really strange. It leaves us feeling out of sorts.
Everyone’s trying to keep going, and everyone’s doing the best they can.
In fact, most of us are handling things pretty well, really, as far as I can
tell. But still, it bothers us. When something that we thought
would always be there is gone, it shakes us up. We’re not sure what we
can trust any more.
If you feel that way, know that you can trust God. We
may not know what’s going to happen or when or how. But God does.
None of this has come as a surprise to God. And God knows exactly how
it’s going to all come out. You and I may not know how to handle
this. We may feel like we’re flailing around, trying to figure out how to
handle it. But we don’t need to. God already has it all
handled. God has it all figured out. We can trust that. We
can trust God.
And after that, Paul says this: “God did this so that
they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is
not far from any one of us.”
There’s our answer. If we’re struggling with handling
things, there’s our answer. Reach out for God. Find God. God
is not far from any of us. All we need to do is reach out for Him.
If we do, we’ll find Him. Because God is right there.
God is as close as anyone and anything you can
imagine. God is our closest friend. God is our closest
relative--after all, we’re His children. God is as close as our next
breath. God is as close as our fingertips. God is as close as our
innermost thoughts. All we need to do is seek Him. All we need to
do is reach out for Him. God is right there.
That, my friends, is the God we have. A God who is
all-powerful. A God who is eternal. A God who is in control of
everything. A God who stands outside of time itself. And yet, a God
who loves us so much that He treats us as His children and allows us the
privilege of serving Him. A God who has everything figured out, even when
you and I don’t have a clue. A God who, as awesome and incredible as He
is, is as close to us as our breath.
Our God is not an unknown God
at all. Our God is right here with us. Leading us. Guiding
us. Helping us. Caring for us. Handling whatever needs to be
handled. All we need to do is trust him. All we need to do is reach
out for Him, and we’ll find Him. Because he’s right here.
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