Sermon Notes

Making the Second Effort – Four Part Series on Evangelism

Confronting Unknown Gods and Living to Tell the Story

November 2 , 2008 – Pastor Dave Scherrer

Acts 17:22-31

Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you.

"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. 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. 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. 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. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

"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. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 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."

NOTES:

What do ‘ Athens ' and ‘ Boulder ' have in common: Mostly everything!

The Synagogue and the Marketplace

Epicureans

Stoics

What about “Arvadans?” “Westminsterites?”

The Master's Plan of Evangelism - No moment left unclaimed

Three things Paul did right:

1 . No moment left unclaimed

2. Finding common ground

3. Casting seeds and letting God measure what defines success

till . . . “ I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).