Real | Real God - Acts 17:16-31 | January 21
INTRO
Hey Family! I’m glad to see all of your bright and shining faces again.
As we’ve stepped into this new year, we’ve been contemplating a central unifying question–what does it mean to be real? To be real people? To be a real family? We are surrounded by imitation, searching for something real. What does it take to be real?
Today we’re going to continue that train of thought by considering what it means that we serve a real God. The writer of Hebrews says, “whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). He says, anyone who comes to God must believe that He is real…
So, in essence, the reality of God is the foundation of faith. That might seem like a no brainer. For us to have faith in something, we have to at least be convinced that that thing exists. But what if there's more to it than that? What if the acknowledgment that God does indeed exist, that He is real, is not enough?
We know from James 2:19 that belief in God’s existence is good but not adequate in and of itself. James writes, “19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” You believe that there is a God, that’s good. It serves you well to believe that. It’s a good start.
But listen, even demons believe God exists. Not only do they believe that there is a God, they even tremble–they fear or are afraid of the one true God. So they have belief and that belief motivates them to some sort of action or reaction rather, but they’re still demons. They’re still living in rebellion against that one God. Opposed to Him. Not really looking for Him. Not living in a fear of Him that leads to repentance.
So you can believe God is real and still be miles away from Him, headed in the wrong direction. Knowing God is real is good, but it’s not enough. It’s not enough. It is a good start though.
WHAT CHAIR?
Since we’ve been referencing the work of philosophers along the way. I thought I might share one more story. It’s not from Plato. I didn’t find any ancient Greek knowledge lovers to quote this time. I do have a story that perhaps you’ve heard. I remember this circulating around when I was in university. I doubt it’s true but who knows, philosophy professors are just crazy enough to try this. So whether this story is true or not, you can believe that there are some teachers out there who have taken their own liberties with this tale.
It goes something like this, “An eccentric philosophy professor gave a one question final exam after a semester dealing with a broad array of topics. The class was already seated and ready to go when the professor picked up his chair, plopped it on his desk and wrote on the board, and said, ‘Using everything we have learned this semester, prove that this chair does not exist.’
Fingers flew, erasers erased, notebooks were filled in furious fashion. Some students wrote over 30 pages in one hour, attempting to refute the existence of the chair. One member of the class however, was up and finished in less than a minute.
Weeks later, when the grades were posted, the rest of the group wondered how he could have gotten an "A" when he had barely written anything at all. Word soon spread when it was learned that his answer consisted of only two words: ‘What chair?’”
Now, that’s a bit silly. And whoever would have the gaul to try something like that deserves an A in my book. But that’s kind of where a lot of people get stuck. They are unwilling to take those first steps and simply believe that God is real. They may explain it away with a flourish of science or some other belief system they have concocted for themselves, absent of the divine.
The belief in God is a reasonable belief by the way. And what I mean is that using the art of reason, logic, and critical thinking, many of the world’s greatest thinkers have arrived at the simple truth–God is real. When it comes down to it, it’s a lot easier for many of us to justify our lives and even our selfish and destructive behavior if we don't have to believe God exists.
If God doesn’t exist then there is no moral requirement and I can do whatever I want to. Everything is permissible. That’s something the Corinthian believers would say, using their freedom in Christ to justify all manner of harmful behavior. Harmful to themselves and ultimately harmful to the group. “‘I have the right to do anything,’ [they said]—but not everything is beneficial” (1 Corinthians 10:23). Not everything is good for you.
So one choice we have is to simply say there is no chair! God doesn’t exist. But the problem is no one truly lives that way. There is no human being on earth that truly lives as if God is not real.
When asked if God exists, Jordan Peterson has typically responded by saying, “I act as if God exists.” To him, it’s a matter of action and a matter of commitment. To one degree or another, we all act as if God exists. We believe there to be a purpose in life. We believe there are certain moral imperatives to be followed. We may debate what those are but we believe in them. We love and we care.
Now, I can tell you that this chair exists because I can touch it. I can see it. I can sit in it and experience it. And while those are all true statements, I could just be hallucinating. My mind could be lying to me.
I could ask you to sit in the chair and then remove the chair and ask you to try and sit down. You could conclude that there is an observable difference in the absence of a chair. But function doesn’t necessitate existence. I can sit on you too, does that make you a chair? Do objects exist, or are they only concepts in our minds?
I can throw the chair at you. If it doesn’t exist then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. But then, should we conclude that it’s our fear or devotion of a thing that moves it into reality?
Acting as if God exists is a start, but it too is not enough. Believing God Is real is not enough. Acting as if God is real is not enough. It’s not primarily epistemological or metaphysical—it’s not knowledge or function though these are good things.
It is a good thing to know God—to believe in God. “This is eternal life, that [we] know [Him], the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom [He has] sent” (John 17:3). But believing that God exists is not the same thing as believing in God. Acting as if God is real is not the same thing as putting the full weight of who you are on Him.
So, we must be saying something more when we say that we serve a real God.
ACTS 17
Let me read a passage from Acts chapter 17. If you need a Bible, there are some beside each section near the wall. I’m sure someone would be happy to help get one to you. And if you don’t have a Bible at home that is yours to keep if you promise to read it. Acts 17 is on page xxx in that Bible. It’ll also be on the screen behind me. Acts 17:16-31…
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, ‘What does this babbler wish to say?’ Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.’”
We see here that the people of Athens believed that there were real gods. It says that the “city was full of idols”. Clearly there’s more to believing in the existence of God. We have to know the right things about God or else we’re believing in false gods or most likely we make ourselves and those around us our gods. We also see that the Athenians were hungry for knowledge. It says…
“21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new. 22 So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”
While there are some who simply say there is no chair, God doesn’t exist. That’s actually a pretty small percentage of the population of the world. And if you watch the debates. it’s usually educated, middle-aged white dudes who apparently have nothing better to do with their time. The atheist demographic is lacking in diversity to a large degree. More people believe in some kind of transcendent being, a god or maybe gods plural. What many of these people believe is that god is distant and unknowable. Even the agnostic says “it cannot be known if there is a god or not”. Paul says, “you’ve got all these fake gods around, and believe that God is an unknowable entity. Well, I’m going to tell you about the reality of God. I’m going to introduce you to the real God.”
“24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26 And He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In Him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because He has fixed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this He has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
ULTIMATE REALITY
What we encounter here is not just a god who is real, but the God who is reality itself. It’s the ontology of existence, I could be getting my terms wrong.
He is the very essence and nature of being.
In Exodus 3 when Moses asks God for His name to tell the Egyptians and the people of Israel who has sent him. God answers, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). I love that name Yahweh. The existing one.
“I AM is the ultimate statement of self-sufficiency, self-existence, and immediate presence. God’s existence is not contingent upon anyone else. His plans are not contingent upon any circumstances. He promises that He will be what He will be; that is, He will be the eternally constant God. He stands, ever-present and unchangeable, completely sufficient in Himself to do what He wills to do and to accomplish what He wills to accomplish.”
It’s not just that God is real. God is ultimate reality.
God is ultimate reality. What that means is that He sustains, controls, governs, and connects everything else in the universe. In verse 28 it says that, “in Him we live and move and have our being.”
He creates and He sustains. He holds me together in my inmost being (Colossians 1:17). Without God there is no reality. All that we consider to be real is incomplete without God. Believing in God is not just believing that He is real. It’s not just acting as though He exists. It’s understanding that His very breath shapes reality. God breathed and reality began (Genesis 1:26-27). He is reality’s source. It is having the entirety of your life shaped by and filled full with God. We openly declare that He is the author and sustainer of life. Real people who are part of a real family demonstrate with their lives that He created all things, and that in Him they live and move and have their being. Reality is made real in God.
GATEWAY TO REALITY
God is ultimate reality is more than just a belief. It is the way to life.
Do you want a real life? Do you want to live as a real person? Jesus says, “I am the door”. “I came not only to give life but to give you a real life, a full life, an ever expanding life. I am the way and the truth and the life. Life is found in me!” (John 10:10; 14:6).
Real people come from a real God–the God of reality.
When you take God out of the equation, you essentially go back to what Paul encountered in Athens, the belief that truth is unknowable and therefore subject to interpretation. That’s why our culture has everything so twisted and turned upside down. If truth is dependant on how you’re feeling in the moment the result is less reality, less identity, more anxiety, more depression, more uncertainty. God gives us a solid ground for certainty.
Friedrich Nietzsche famously said, “God is dead and we killed him.” Nietzsche didn’t really believe in God, but he feared what the collapse of the Christian system would mean for western civilization. And we see those effects today.
When you kill God, you kill science. I know that doesn’t make sense to some of you. But when you stop believing in the source of truth you begin to justify any truth you want. When you kill God, you kill truth. But because God is real and He is reality we believe that there is truth, that it is knowable, and that it is a good thing.
There is a creator of life, a sustainer of life.
VALUE TO REALITY
The result is that God values life. And because God values life, there is an intrinsic value, worth, dignity, and honor that is inherent in human life–in your life because God is the author and the source of reality and He has made us in His image.
Your life has value. You are valuable. Life has purpose. You have purpose.
To get political without getting political, this is why Christians value the life of the unborn. Every life has an inherent value, dignity, and honor. This is why Christians continue to lead the way in humanitarian aid. This is why Christians fight against human trafficking. That’s why, across history, we see Christians loving the sick and the dying, advocating for the abolition of slavery, caring for the abused and forgotten. There is intrinsic worth in every human life. The Declaration of Independence calls these inalienable rights endowed into human beings by their Creator.
We do not fear death because death would only bring us closer to reality (Philippians 1:19-26).
SIN TEARS US FROM REALITY
That’s the Biblical picture of Heaven–ultimate reality. To be united with God for all eternity. This is where reality really begins.
God is the author and the source of ultimate reality. The problem is that a broken relationship with God tears us away from ultimate reality. Our sin gets in the way and holds us back from being real people. That’s the Biblical picture of Hell, eternal separation from God.
Romans 5:12-21 says, “12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death [decreation, unreality], so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned… 15 But there is a great difference between Adam’s sin and God’s gracious gift. For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of forgiveness to many through this other man, Jesus Christ. 16 And the result of God’s gracious gift is very different from the result of that one man’s sin. For Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins. 17 For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and his gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one man, Jesus Christ.
18 Yes, Adam’s one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness brings a right relationship with God and new life [a fullness of reality] for everyone. 19 Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous… 21 So just as sin ruled over all people and brought them to death, now God’s wonderful grace rules instead, giving us right standing with God and resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
God’s free gift leads us into ultimate reality. Realness is only found in God. We are, as we find our identity in the I AM. You could say that life with God is a journey into discovering what reality really is.
INVITATION TO REALITY
And that is what we are invited into. Ultimate reality offers you an invitation to be light and life for the world around you. To be the “salt of the earth” as Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:13).
“Christians are to serve the world. We’re intended to spread throughout the world and enhance it… drawing out the blessings of whatever is good, and providing a contrast by being distinct and different… to preserve goodness in the world… offering ourselves in obedience, suffering self-sacrifice… preaching the Gospel'' and ushering in reality.
Living as real people, who are part of a real family, serving a real God. Inviting others who are not yet part of the family to be a part of a real family. To live real lives themselves. This is what it means to serve a real God. God as ultimate reality. Walking into His reality. Inviting others along as He pours realness into every aspect of our lives.
Resources (*the views expressed within the following content are solely the author's and may not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Mountainside Church):
The Essentials of Christian Thought: Seeing Reality through the Biblical Story; by Roger E. Olson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNhdg6ZYa1k
https://www.gotquestions.org/I-AM-WHO-I-AM-Exodus-3-14.html
https://bigthink.com/thinking/what-nietzsche-really-meant-by-god-is-dead/