SERIES: Worship 101 Message: Why We Worship

Acts 17:16-34

1. Worship 101. Last week, who we worship. Today, why we worship. Next Sunday, how we worship. To answer our why we worship? question we’re going to Athens, Greece. 40 A.D. with the apostle Paul.

Let’s go with Paul to Athens, Greece – 40 A.D.
1. Paul’s heart must have been racing when he set foot in Athens:
§ home of Socrates, Plato & Aristotle
§ unrivaled intellectual center of the Roman Empire
§ city of literature & art
§ aesthetically magnificent
§ culturally sophisticated
§ morally decadent
§ spiritually blinded

2. let’s walk with Paul through the city streets & notice what Paul saw, felt, did & said.

what Paul saw – 16
1. as tourist Paul walked around the city what hit him between the eyes were all the city’s idols. Idolatry was rampant.

2. one historian referred to Athens as a veritable forest of idols. Temples, shrines, statues & altars smothered the city – images of Athena, Apollo, Venus, Mercury, Neptune, Diana, all the gods of Olympus.

3. Paul discovered a city submerged in idols & dripping in spirituality.

what Paul felt – 16
1. he was greatly distressed. These idols set something off in Paul. They abhorred him. John Stott – they must have aroused within him deep stirrings of jealously for God’s name.

2. he 1st saw that the city was full of idols. And then he felt greatly distressed. What his eyes took in his heart experienced. The idols hit him like a bombshell.

3. what do you see when you walk the streets of Canby? Portland? Seattle? What do you feel? Are you eyes connected to your heart?

what Paul did – 17-18
1. 1st he visited the synagogue & spoke with God-fearing Greeks = going to church. 2nd he hit the marketplace & talked to people there = Starbucks, café, shopping mall, neighborhood pub. 3rd he entered into debate with a group of Epicurean (chance, escape, pleasure) & Stoic (fatalism, pain) philosophers = university.

2. he engaged the culture of Athens. He dialogued with God-fearing Jews, passers-by & philosophers.

3. I love vs. 18. Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. He stood up for what he believed. He took Jesus to the people. Wherever he went, Paul made Jesus the issue, the message, the question. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

4. John Stott – there is an urgent need for more Christian thinkers who will dedicate their minds to Christ as authors, journalists, dramatists, broadcasters, television script-writers, artists, actors who use a variety of art forms in which to communicate the gospel. Amen!

what Paul said – 22-31
1. the philosophers invited him to the Areopagus. Once Greece’s judicial court, it now acted like the city Council (33). Guardian of the city’s religion, morals & education.

2. Paul preached a 5 point sermon. I’ll give it to you quickly because I want to talk about why we worship.

3. God is our Creator (24)

4. God is our Sustainer (25)

5. God is our Ruler (26-27)

6. God is our Father (28-29)

7. God is our Judge (30-31)

why we worship
1. I want to sit us down on these words from vs. 28 – for in him we live, move & have our being. Paul is quoting a 6th century B.C. poet from the island of Crete.

2. Paul must have read poetry – the secular poets. Cool!

3. what that poet wrote 500 years before Paul was God’s truth whether he knew it or not. All truth is God’s truth no matter where we find it.

4. get this. To secular philosophers who were not followers of Jesus Christ Paul says – your life is bound up in God’s life; your energy comes from him; your very existence is tied to his. And this is true of each one of us:

through him (Jesus) all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made (John 1:3)

for from him (God) and through him and to him are all things (Romans 11:36)

for by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible & invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him (Colossians 1:16)

he has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

Louis Giglio – The Air I Breathe: Worship As A Way of Life
1. we have been created BY God and FOR God. And that’s why we worship. Worship is the activity of the human soul.

2. every culture, every people, every time, every place – worshippers. Every corner of the world, every age has had its gods.

3. why do we crave something to worship? Why are we so insatiably drawn from idol to idol? Why do we desperately
need something to exalt & something to adore?

4. the Bible tells us via a secular Greek poet that in him we live, move & have our being!

5. we carry an internal homing device riveted deep within our soul that longs for our Maker. An internal, God-ward
magnet, pulling us toward him.

5. we’re born with something we attach to, something we fit with, someone we belong to, somewhere called home.

6. we’re thrust from the womb equipped for connectivity with God, pre-wired to praise. That’s why we worship!
my reality & your reality
1. worship is the activity of the human soul. Whatever matters most to me, the thing I put first in my life is what I worship – Duck football, relationship, friends, status, stuff, pleasure. We worship what we value most.

2. if we are made to love & worship God, why do we struggle to live a life of worship? Why do we so often fail? I can think of a number of reasons:
§ sovereign self – we want to be Queen or King of our lives
§ sin – we are not walking in God’s will or delighting in his ways
§ decisions – to highly value other things or people
§ ignorance – we’ve never been taught about who we are in God

3. the goal for all of us is to strive to live lives of worship. To do this we need to seek the presence of God in our lives – he is not far from each one of us (27). God is here, always here. How can we learn to seek his presence?

spiritual pathways
1. Gary Thomas has written one of the most insightful books I’ve ever read – Sacred Pathways – Discover Your Soul’s Path to God. He identifies 9 different ways that we experience God’s presence in our lives & world.

2. naturalist – experience God in creation

3. sensates – experience God with their senses = incense, architecture, classical music, language

4. traditionalist – ritual & symbol = liturgy, cross, stained glass

5. ascetics – solitude & simplicity = left alone in prayer
6. activists – stand against evil, work for justice, call people to repentance

7. caregivers – service, loving others, poor & needy

8. enthusiasts – joyful celebration, experience & feel God

9. contemplatives – love God through pure adoration

10. intellectuals – love God with their minds, life of study

11. we will fully experience God’s presence if we know & practice our spiritual pathway. We will worship most authentically by walking our spiritual pathway.

12. you are pre-wired to worship God. You have an internal magnet pulling you toward him. You have a homing device deep within you set on God.

13. tap into your spiritual pathway & let worship come!