Every Saturday night, from the time I was a little boy-all the way up until I left for college-my dad and I went through the same basic ritual. I’d be down in the family room watching FLIPPER or one of the other popular Saturday night TV shows with my three siblings and Dad would come down the stairs and ask me to come up and join him in his study. I’d do that and then he’d sit at his desk, pick up his sermon manuscript for the next day, and say, “Mark, I want you to listen to my message and let me know what you think.” and he’d proceed to preach his entire sermon to me and ask for my input on things like the length of the message and whether or not the introduction got my attention, etc. That was our Saturday night routine. I think I missed almost every episode of FLIPPER!
But-my exposure to Dad’s sermon was far from over. You see, the next morning I always went with him to the 8:30 service, where I heard the same sermon a second time and, since there was no one to take me home after Sunday School, I’d sit through the 11:00AM service and hear it a third time. So, for ten or eleven years I heard each of my dad’s Sunday sermons three times. Sometimes by the time the 11:00AM service rolled around I could almost lip sync his entire message!
Well, through all this exposure to dad’s messages over the years I got pretty good at giving him constructive feedback each Saturday night, and to be honest I didn’t really mind missing Flipper. I mean, it felt good to share that time with my dad. His insistence that I join him up in his study every week told me that my opinion was important to him-which communicated to me that I was important to him!
Of course I can look back on my life now and see that all this weekend SERMON STUDY was part of God’s providential guidance-part of His preparing me to be a pastor. And this sermon study also benefitted me in another way: It helped me to learn a lot about the Christian walk. You see, my dad believed a sermon should be worth his congregation’s time. He worked very hard to provide messages that were well-outlined and illustrated and packed with Biblical truth. So all those years of literal one-on-one study with him helped disciple me as a Christian.
Well, this morning I’d like you and me to do a little “sermon study” together. Don’t worry, we won’t follow my dad’s teaching technique. I mean, I won’t force you to listen to a sermon three times. And, the sermon I want to study is not one of my dad’s-nor is it one of my own. No-I want us to study a sermon that Paul preached in Athens. It’s recorded in the 17th chapter of the book of Acts. So “turn off Flipper,” pull up a seat opposite me and get ready to listen! I’ll expect your feedback at the end!
Sermon:
Now, to fully understand the message of this sermon we need to review a bit so that we can get the setting in our mind. So take your Bibles and open them to Acts 16. You should remember that when we last left this 1st century preacher, Paul had just been released from a Philippian jail. The last few verses of chapter 16 tell us that when the magistrates in the city of Philippi learned that he and Silas were Roman citizens, they apologized for the way they had been treated. They did this because they knew that as Roman citizens Paul and Silas had rights-rights that had been ignored. For example Roman law clearly said that it was illegal to flog a citizen of Rome. And remember, as I said last week, the Philippians were PROUD to be Romans. But even though they pretty much tripped over themselves in their haste to apologize, these magistrates still begged Paul and Silas to leave the city so as not to cause any further disturbance. And, after paying one more visit to Lydia and the other members of the Philippian church that’s what they did-they left.
Be sure and note that at this point in his little history book, Luke goes back to saying “they” instead of “we” which means that Paul and Silas left but Luke stayed in Philippi. I think Timothy did so as well-for a short time. After all, these two had not been asked to leave by the city magistrates and so they remained to help shepherd the new church, promising to join Paul and Silas as soon as possible. This brings us to chapter 17 and verse one seems to imply that three days after leaving Philippi, they arrived at the capital city of Thessalonica, which was about 100 miles away.
To travel this far in this period of time, especially in their weakened condition (remember, they had been severely flogged) Paul and Silas would have had to do so on horseback. Perhaps the Christians in Philippi provided the steeds or maybe the embarrassed magistrates in Philippi did so to make up for the way Paul and Silas had been treated. I don’t know. But in any case, Paul and Silas decided to journey all the way to Thessalonica because they knew that since it was the capital a church started there would spread the faith to surrounding towns. When they arrived, Paul followed his typical church-starting modus operandi and went immediately to the synagogue and for the next three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures. That is to say, he took their copies of the Old Testament scrolls from their shelves and read the prophecies there that prove that Jesus Christ was indeed the long awaited Messiah. Then Paul told them how Jesus had died on the cross for the sins of all mankind-and how He rose from the dead-and then he showed how all this was also foretold in the Jewish Scriptures. And this tactic worked. Look at verse 4,
“Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few prominent women.”
But, when the other Jews saw many of the members of their synagogue embracing the Christian faith, they became jealous and formed sort of a lynch mob. This mob of angry people wandered around the streets but they couldn’t find Paul and Silas so they went to the home where they were staying, found its owner, and dragged him into court. His name was Jason and the judge forced him to post his personal property as bond-promising that Paul and Silas would leave town, which they did under cover of darkness.
But, before we “leave” Thessalonica look at verse 6 because it lists the exact wording of the charges that were made against Paul and Silas. The leaders of this mob said, “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here!” Now, the literal Greek translation here would read something like this, “These men have been going around TURNING THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN. And now they’ve come here to do the same.” And, I must say-I love that statement! First, because it was an unintentional compliment. Think of it, these Jews were saying that two middle-aged men had been able to turn the world upside down all by themselves-no small accomplishment for two mere mortals!
But I also love this statement because it has a ring of ironic truth. You see, Paul and Silas WERE upsetting the world-but they were not turning it UPSIDE DOWN. They were turning it RIGHT SIDE UP! The world had been turned upside down back in the Garden of Eden, when sin entered through the disobedience of the first humans, Adam and Eve. As a result of their sinful actions, this became a fallen world where wrong-doing and unfairness, sickness and death are common place. Then in the fulness of time Jesus came. He took the sin of all mankind on His own sinless self as He hung on that cross. He died in our place. Then He conquered death. And in this way He made it possible for things to be set aright.
So, for the past 2,000 years anyone who has called on His name-anyone who has repented of his or her sin has been forgiven and has then got back what Adam and Eve lost-a personal relationship with our Creator. They’ve been made RIGHT with God. After Jesus ascended to heaven, Christians like Paul and Silas followed His command and shared this wonderful news-all over our fallen, topsy-turvy world. And in this way they began to turn the world right-side-up again. Where there was darkness, they brought light. Where there was hatred, they brought love. Where there was anxiety they brought a peace that passes understanding. Where there was sadness, they brought laughter. Where there was bondage, they brought freedom. Where there was fear of death, they brought the good news of eternal life.
So with the message they proclaimed they DID take a world that was troubled and tangled and they turned it right side up. Christians like you and me are still called to do the same thing. And that’s good news because its so obvious that our world needs righting, wouldn’t you agree? I mean, as you watch the news doesn’t it seem to you as if our culture has things backwards-upside down? Think of it. Should our world be a place where last week parents in D.C. buried their small children-a brother and sister who were gunned down by a drug dealer?
Does that seem “right side up” to you? Should the world be a place where one country feeds its pets more food than another country is able to feed its children? Does that seem “right side up” to you? Should the world be a place where sexual immorality and perversion is embraced and esteemed-and where selfish lifestyles like this spread disease and death even to the innocent? Does that seem “right side up” to you? Should the world be a place where infants are killed by their mothers simply because they believe their little lives are an inconvenience? Does that seem “right side up?” Should the world be a place where people die without any hope of life after death? I mean, does it make sense to you that human beings-who alone have a concept of eternity-would just become food for worms? Does that seem “right side up” to you? I could go on and on….because it IS obvious that this world we live in has so many things-backwards-upside down-and it is our calling as God’s ambassadors to help right them!
And we do that by sharing the good news of the Gospel-because the only way to right the world is to right the human heart and the only way to right the human heart is to invite Jesus into it!
Well, as I said, this Jewish mob was angry over Paul and Silas upsetting their world so they forced them to leave Thessalonica, and Paul and Silas’ next stop was the little village of Berea. When they arrived, once again Paul went to the synagogue-and used the Old Testament Scriptures to help them understand the good news of Jesus’ coming. And these Bereans were wonderful because they had already accepted the Scriptures as absolutely authoritative, which made it easier for them to see that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. Their example should remind us, that as I told you a couple weeks ago, the Bible is our source of authority in life. It is our compass-our guide-not experiences or feelings, not tradition…the Bible! After all, this Book is not the word of man-it is the written Word of God and as Proverbs 30:5 says, “every Word of God is flawless.”
Well, with this mind set things were of course going great in Berea-until the Jews who had opposed Paul in Thessalonica showed up. They had apparently followed him and quickly stirred up a “lynch mob” similar to the one in Thessalonica such that Paul was forced to leave town again and this time he headed for Athens. Luke and Timothy, who had joined them in Berea, were able to stay with Silas and shepherd this third church start just as they had done in Philippi but Paul had to leave. They all promised to join him in Athens as soon as possible. Once Paul arrived and got settled, he did what you and I would probably do while he waited for his companions. He took a little sight-seeing tour of this world-famous city. And I’m sure that even then tourism was big in Athens because it was a city that was unsurpassed in sculpture and architecture. It boasted a sixty-thousand seat stadium. Art galleries existed in rare abundance. Athens was a bit past her glory days at that time but it still stood as the cultural centerpiece of the entire Greek world. Lavishly decorated music halls and respected academies lined the stone-laid streets. Wealthy families from around the world still sent their children to Athens to study. After all, this was a university city-famous for the way it embraced higher learning. This had been the home of Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato.
Well, I’m sure Paul took all this in-he enjoyed the atmosphere. And I say this because he himself had been trained in one of the prestigious university cities of that day-Tarsus. In fact it is obvious that his education in Tarsus included Greek poetry because, as you’ll see in a moment, he quoted two of their poets in his sermon. I’m sure Paul was thrilled by the mind-challenging educational atmosphere of Athens. I think he felt like I do when I find a new bookstore! Perhaps he shopped in a few Athenian book stores. I guess back then they called them “scroll-stores!” But soon his excitement turned to sorrow as he saw how much idol worship was present in that city. I mean, idols were everywhere he looked. In fact, it has been repeatedly said that it was easier to find a “god” than a man in Athens. And its easy to understand how someone could make this statement because there were tens of thousands of them in Paul’s day, more idols in Athens than in all of the rest of Greece combined. R. C. H. Lenski says that because of this Athens was,
“…one great altar, one great offering to the gods.”
Well the more idols Paul saw, the more upset he became. As verse 16 puts it, Paul was “distressed in spirit” because of the prevalence of all these “gods” of stone or wood or gold. He was distressed because these idols showed him that the men and women of Athens had a great capacity for God. They knew there was something beyond man, and they were seeking it. But they were seeking it in the wrong place! Each idol also revealed a twisting-a distorting-of that capacity-a sabotaging of it. I mean, satan was obviously at work in Athens. Well, as Paul took all this in, God began to plant the outline of a sermon in his heart. During his walks through the city, God helped him see exactly what these people needed to hear. Paul practiced the first draft of his message by sharing his convictions in the synagogue. Then he further honed it by literally taking his message to the street, discussing his views with Athenians in the marketplace.
Now, it may seem odd to you that Paul, a new-comer-a stranger, would discuss things with the people in the market place, but in Athens that is what people did for fun. Look at verse 21, “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.” These Greeks loved to discuss things so Paul’s street corner sermonettes were welcome.
Well, through these “on the street” interviews Paul met representatives of the two main philosophical groups of that city-the Epicureans and the Stoics. The Epicureans believed that the chief end of man was pleasure and the avoidance of pain. They did not deny the existence of gods but taught that the gods did not involve themselves in the affairs of man. They also believed that at death the body and soul dissolved. They did not believe in the after-life. This was the “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die” crowd because they believed, if it feels good do it-if it feels bad don’t do it. I don’t know about you…but I think the epicurean philosophy is still alive and well today-in our pleasure-worshiping, pain-avoiding culture!
Now, the other group-the Stoics-were pantheists. They taught that everything is god-the stones the trees-the birds in the air-you, me-everything. In many ways they were the opposite of the Epicureans because they were fatalists who believed that since life is filled with unavoidable good and bad the best we can do is grin and bear it. I mean, they prided themselves on their ability to take whatever came. They urged moderation in life and regarded apathy as the highest virtue.
Think of it this way. The epicurean said, “Enjoy life” and the stoics said, “Endure life.”
Well, try to imagine these two proud groups in the marketplace, listening to Paul talk. Picture these Areopagus eggheads in their philosophers’ robes, stroking their beards as they sized him up, “kicking the tires” of his new teaching, so to speak. Luke tells us that, after listening a bit, SOME OF THEM shook their heads and called him a “babbler” This word is literally translated “seed picker” and it referred to scavenger birds who went around pecking at seed and food scraps that had fallen on the streets of the market. Think of them as those little winged scavengers who devour any left over fries they find in the parking lot at MacDonald’s and you have the right idea because this designation meant these guys thought of Paul as a mere collector of fragments of truth, someone who was not really educated…a few fries short of a Happy Meal. It was their judgement that he had just scavenged a few choice words from philosophies that he had picked up along the way and used these words to try and impress people. But OTHERS THOUGHT it would be interesting to hear what Paul had to say, since to them he seemed to be spouting some new truth-and as I said, Greeks loved to discuss any new truth. Well, they talked among themselves and decided to give him a formal hearing before the Areopagus-a council in Athens that had the responsibility for supervising education in the city and controlling the many itinerant lecturers passing through. Paul accepted their invitation. I’m sure he thought it was a great opportunity-kind of like being asked to preach before the U. S. Senate or being invited to share your faith with the President and his entire cabinet.
Now, as an “experienced” sermon critic, I must say Paul had a great introduction to his message because it enabled him to identify with his listeners in such a way that he seized their attention immediately. Look at verses 22-23 and you’ll see what I mean. In his opening words he didn’t put them down or attack their idolatry. In fact, he sort of paid them a compliment by saying, “I’ve walked around your fair city and its obvious to me that you are a very religious people. I see that you are ‘god-fearers.'” He went on to comment that in his tooling about town he had discovered an altar made to an UNKNOWN GOD-one of several such idols in Athens. I came across the story behind the origin of these idols this week and found it to be very interesting. It seems that many centuries before Paul arrived a plague had broken out in Athens. These “god-fearers” decided to deal with the plague by turning a flock of sheep loose in the city. They let them run wild for a while and then went to look for them. Wherever the sheep were found they were slain and offered to a god. If they were slain near the altar of a recognized god, they were dedicated to it-Zeus or Athena or whoever-but if they were found in a place that was not near any idol, a new altar was erected at that spot and the lamb was sacrificed there to an unknown god!
Well, these idols gave Paul an idea for his introduction so he said, “This is the God I want to talk to you about…I want to tell you about the unknown God.” As I said, this introduction really got their attention-and then with all these “educated” Stoic and Epicurean ears perked up, he began to preach a short but very powerful message. It’s recorded in verses 24-34. Listen now as I read. Referring to their unknown God Paul said,
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.
25 – 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.
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.
27 – 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.
28 – ‘For in Him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’
29 -“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.
30 -In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.
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.”
Now, as I said a moment ago, I want us to study Paul’s sermon together because I think it contains truth we need to hear today so let’s get to it. Don’t worry. This won’t take long because his brief message has only ONE POWERFUL POINT and it is this. Paul said, “Listen…your “unknown” God has made Himself KNOWN in three ways.”
A. First, Paul says He has made Himself known in CREATION.
As Paul puts it in verse 24, evidence of His power and wisdom can be seen no matter which direction they looked because the “unknown” God made “the world and everything in it.” God is unlike their “gods” because He was not created by man. In fact, as the Originator of all things, He made the stone, wood, and precious metals that those Greeks had used to make all of their tens of thousands of “idols” and the temples that house them. Paul went on to say that unlike the Greek “gods” the “unknown” God did not need their sacrifices. No real “god” would. To need anything would make that being less than a god! And Paul was right, God doesn’t need our gifts-He gives us our needs. Our very life and breath-everything is from God. He is our Sustainer not the other way around. This is because, as Paul says in verse 26, the “unknown God” made man and before they had a chance to object he pointed out that this concept had been acknowledged by their own poets. Epimenidies had said that in the Creator, “we live and move and have our being” and a stoic philosopher named Aratas said, “we are His offspring.”
Okay-let me ask you-does this part of Paul’s sermon need to be preached today? Sure it does-because, like those epicurean eggheads, most of the shakers and movers in our culture still either don’t believe in God or they embrace a warped understanding of Him. Many have accepted the THEORIES of Charles Darwin as FACT-and remember Darwin foolishly postulated that the intricate beauty of creation just happened. The pure form of his evolutionary theory says all of this amazing world of ours-including you and me-are just accidents-part of the circle of life-and that there was no Creator-God. This is the message that is taught in public schools and college campuses all over our nation. So, we need to hear this part of Paul’s sermon to prepare us for our own “Aereopagas experiences.”
And the fact is, there is more evidence for a Creator today than ever before. The more mankind has delved into TRUE science during the past 2,000 years, the more facts they have come across that point to the existence of an intelligent and compassionate Designer. This is because, as it says in Romans 1:20,”Since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what He has made.”
Think of it this way. God, the Creator of everything, loves visual aids! He loves to put things all around us in the created order to teach us things about Himself so when we look at and study creation, we learn about God. Hendrick Van Loon, journalist and lecture responded to God’s visual aids in creation because after his first visit to the Grand Canyon, he said, “I came an atheist. I leave a believer.” And more and more true scientists are following his example. You won’t hear it in many public educational circles but most scientists now concede that the universe began suddenly in a flash of light and energy. They believe there was a cause-and if there was a cause there had to be a “Caus-er!” After LOOKING at-truly STUDYING-the stars, former agnostic astronomer Robert Jastrow was forced to concede that although details may differ,
“…the essential element in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis is the same; the chain of events leading to man commenced suddenly and sharply, at a definite moment in time, in a flash of light and energy.”
After LOOKING closely at the created order more and more scientists now see holes in Darwin’s theory. David Raup, curator of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago writes,
“We are now about one hundred and twenty years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have quarter of a million fossil species, but the situation hasn’t changed much. We have even fewer examples of evolutionary transition than we had in Darwin’s time. What the fossil record does show is that in rocks dated back some five hundred and seventy million years, there is the sudden appearance of nearly all the animal phyla, and they appear fully formed without a trace of the evolutionary ancestors that Darwinists require.”
So-yes, this part of Paul’s sermon is still preach-able-it’s message still needs to be heard because the more we look at Creation, the more we will be able to KNOW about God.
B. Well, at this point in his message Paul went on to say that the “unknown God” has also made Himself known in the human HEART.
Look at verse 27 where he says that God created the world-including designing or programming human beings such that they, “…would seek Him and reach out for Him and find Him for He is not far from each one of us.” In other words God designed each of us with a NEED to know Him-a HUNGER to find Him. He built each of us with sort of a “God-shaped hole” in the midst of our being. I’ve heard of at least two recent scientific studies that confirm this-all people are each hard-wired to need God-to seek God. And when we respond to this “programming” and seek our Creator, we find Him, because Paul is right. God is not far from each of us.
In his best-selling book, The Body, Chuck Colson recounts the true story of a girl named Irina Ratushinskaya who lived in Russia in the days before the fall of the Iron Curtain, back when Nikita Krushchev ruled the Soviet Union. One day in school Irina looked out the window to see snow falling and she yearned to be out of school so she and her playmates could build snowmen and have snowball fights and sled down hills, instead of being stuck in school listening to boring lectures. In fact, as she watched the snow fall she was in the midst of her least favorite class-the compulsory atheist instruction. Irena had been created with a sharp mind and so she noticed that in Russia everyone seemed to be against God-the teachers, the headmaster, the speakers on the radio-the whole country. To her this didn’t seem fair. After all, even on the playground, they were not allowed to gang up on one person. It also seemed odd to her that they all pitched such a furious battle against Someone they said didn’t exist. This didn’t make sense. If God didn’t exist, why go to all the trouble? “God doesn’t exist,” the instructor said again.
“Only silly, ignorant old women believe in Him.” Irina thought, “Can’t they tell they are giving themselves away? Adults tell you there are no gremlins or ghosts. They tell you once or twice, and that’s it. But with God, they tell you over and over again. So He must exist-and He must be very powerful for them to fear Him so greatly.”
With that logic in mind, she returned to thinking about the snow and then she uttered her first attempts at a prayer. She reached out to the God Who, as Paul said isn’t far from any of us. She prayed, “God, if You did not exist, we wouldn’t have to listen to this lecture. So it’s Your fault we are sitting in here missing the snow. If You’re so powerful, make it keep snowing.” Well, the one true God-the God Who created the universe and all that is in it-answered her prayer and white flakes fell like manna for three days-the city’s largest snow fall in sixty years. School was canceled, and Irina and her friends had a grand old time! Later, as she felt the gently, melting kisses from heaven fall on her face, Irina though about this God her teachers denied-the One Who could make snow fall from official Communist airspace.
She reached out to God-the God, she knew in the depths of her heart was there and He reached back. He sent the snow and then He guided her to places where she could read about His Son. Irina eventually became a Christian and got a Bible. All this, because as Paul said in his sermon, the “unknown God” has made Himself known in the human heart.
Now, I think we at Redland need to hear this fact-because I’ve heard that many of you are uncomfortable about next month’s study of personal evangelism. One reason for this discomfort is because many people fear evangelism because they think they are all on their own when they share their faith-and I admit, that is a scary thought! But the fact is, we are never alone-God has gone before us in every witnessing encounter. He’s hard-wired every human being to seek Him, so when we share our faith we’re just helping them find what they want. We’re just joining God in His work. We’ll talk more about this in the next two months. But remember, God has made Himself known in the human heart and when we act on that knowledge-that instinct…that “programming”God makes Himself known in another way just as He did to Irina. This leads us to Paul’s final point and it’s found in verse 31 where he reminded the council that, as he had no doubt said several times in the Athenian marketplace…
C…the unknown God has made Himself known-through His SON, Jesus Christ.
Paul said that these tens of thousands idols or graven IMAGES were false-but that in essence God HAD revealed Himself in an IMAGE-one Image-the image of His only Son. As Paul would later write in Colossians 1:15, Jesus, “is, the IMAGE of the invisible God.” And as Hebrews 1:3 puts it Jesus, “…is the radiance of God’s glory and the EXACT REPRESENTATION of His being…”
Two first-grade buddies were playing when one said to the other, “I had a good time in Vacation Bible School this morning. Why don’t you go with me tomorrow.” His friend responded by asking, “What’s a Vacation Bible School?” The little boy replied, “We have it at church. We play games, sing, and learn about Jesus Christ.” His friend asked, “Who is Jesus Christ?” And then in wisdom surely born of the Spirit of God, the six year old answered, “Jesus Christ is the best picture of God that has ever been took.” This little boy was right. The clearest way that God has made Himself known is through His Son, Jesus, the Christ. In Jesus God came down to our level so we can see His sacrificial love. Jesus was born to set the world right by dying for our sins and He proved that He had the power to do that by rising from the dead on the third day.
As Paul told his Greek audience we will be judged someday as to how we respond to this. If we repent of our sin and put our faith in Him, we have eternal life. If we reject so great a salvation, we will face eternity separated from God-the one true God-Who has made Himself known in creation, in our hearts, and in His Son.
Invitation:
Okay, that’s Paul’s sermon-and his hearers’ feedback-their criticism of this seed-picker’s message came in three forms. Some mocked his message. Others said they’d like to hear him preach again some day. And some became Christians. Look at verse 34, “A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris and a number of others.”
Well, what is your response? What is your “feedback?” I pray you will not mock Paul’s sermon because it is he gospel truth…and I would also advise that you not put off a response, hoping for future sermons to be more convincing, because we don’t know how much future any of us have. It is my prayer that if you are here and are not a Christian, you will respond like Dionysius and Damaris and the others and decide today to put your faith in Jesus Christ. If you’re already a believer, perhaps God is leading you to join our church family-to work with us here as we do our best to turn the world right side up. As we stand and sing now, won’t you come as God leads?