Episode 7: Acts 7:16-17

Let’s get started with prayer. Lord, we come to you right now asking for your wisdom in our lives, asking for your discernment, asking for your peace and your strength, Lord, to overcome whatever obstacles we might be up against right now.

We need you and we just come right now humbly at your feet and say, show us, heal us and give us strength right now. We love you. We worship you. Help our hearts to worship you alone. In Jesus’ name, we pray.

Well, if you’re anything like me, you’ve had tons of time recently and trying to figure out how to best use that time has been one of my missions the last couple of weeks, and I like a time of reflection. It’s hard for me. I don’t usually stand still long enough to take that time of reflection, but I have appreciated it the last couple of weeks. So I want to share with you just a couple of verses in Acts 17, verses 16 and 17.

This is what they say:

Now, while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the god-fearing Gentiles.And in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present.

It’s a short little part of a much bigger story, really, which I encourage you to read in Acts 17. But it hit me really hard during this time of reflection and rest that we’ve had. I love to people watch. I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing how much I’m an eavesdropper/people watcher. So I can picture Paul kind of coming into the city of Athens and just looking around, observing, overhearing conversations and seeing people worship these idols. This city full of idols. It really must have been something for him to take notice of. Paul went into many cities, towns, villages, and rarely have I read where they describe what this city, town or village look like. But in Athens, it made such a big difference. The book, The Bible said that he was observing the city full of idols and all of this observation and people watching and overhearing conversations and seeing things he hadn’t quite seen before did something to him. Verse 16 says his spirit was being provoked. I looked up synonyms to provoked just to make sure I understood what that meant. And the word “annoyed” came up. It really bothered his spirit——like a call-to-action sort of feeling in his spirit when he saw all these idols in Athens because of all this reflection and rest in self-isolation we’ve put ourselves in because of this virus and to keep ourselves safe. I’ve been thinking a lot about the manmade things in my own life that I might worship idols is what the Bible calls them in Athens.

These things will often become larger and life larger than life. They take all of my attention for a long period of time. These idols in my life tend to command my emotions, make me feel happy or sad or angry or frustrated.

The idols in my life tend to block me from the one thing that I should worship, which is God. I thought about if you were someone who might have a hard time believing God, believing God’s word. Or maybe because you have worshipped something other than God.

It’s hard for you to even really wrap your mind about around worshipping God. See, because the other things that we worship in our life, the manmade things that we worship in our life, they often lie to us like they tell us.

If you worship success, you’re going to be happy. If you worship food, you’ll feel like you like a reward.

The things that we sometimes worship that are manmade. They lie to us, which makes it harder for us to really worship God. What if he also is not telling us the truth?

So if that is you, if you are having a hard time believing God. Walking with God, maybe, I don’t know. I’m sure there’s lots of reasons that could be, but maybe one of them is because you are worshipping something else in your life that’s lying to you. This last week, I decided that I’m calling myself Athens. I am praying and I have been praying this week that I would just kind of people watch my own life right now and that my spirit will be provoked to make a change when I see the idols popping up.

This happened to me this week when I was I went grocery shopping, which is I mean, it’s a chore right now to go grocery shopping. And I had ordered groceries to go pick up. They didn’t have the mall. So then I had to go to another grocery store, wait in line. And it’s just not a good feeling. If you’ve done it, you know what I’m talking about. It’s heavy. It’s troublesome. It’s a little bit scary. It’s like nothing I’ve ever lived through before going grocery shopping. So in between the two stores, I thought to myself, you know, what I deserve right now is an ice cream right now. I would love to have ice cream and I think I deserve it. And the Holy Spirit just kind of spoke to my heart and said, you deserve it. And I knew right then that I was worshipping food. I was depending on food to help me feel better. And I said, Oh, thank you, Lord. OK, moving on to the next grocery store. So I get through that one. And that one was kind of stressful, too. And I got in the car and I thought, you know what, I’m going to have lunch at a specific restaurant that I really love but won’t name right now.

I’m going to go do that because I’m hungry and I’ve gone through it today and I’m going to go eat myself out some lunch. And again, the Holy Spirit spoke to me. Do you need it right now? And I knew the answer was no. I knew that once again, I was using food to replace the peace and comfort that God wanted to give me instead. And so I turned around with seriously with the power of the Holy Spirit alone, because I really wanted that lunch. But he’s showing me the things in my life that I worship, the things the manmade things in my life that I depend on for peace and comfort and strength and a million other things. I was walking with my friend yesterday and I was telling her the story. And she loves the Lord, too. And she said, and you know what? And I just love this. So I had to share it.

She said, we often times want that temporary that temporary reward. And what God’s trying to show us is that instead of that temporary reward, what if you depended on me instead? And I could give you a lasting reward. I could give you a peace that is beyond any human understanding. I can give you the type of power and strength that raises people from the dead. And I just I never thought. It’s not just that he’s trying to deny us the rewards. He’s trying to give us his rewards instead of us seeking our own that are temporary and fleeting.

And I just love that.

So if we know, you know, maybe we’ve been thinking about it or we’re gonna start thinking about what are the idols in our life. And the Holy Spirit starts to kind of show you some things, speaks to you in some ways where you start to recognize some of these. What do we do about that then? What do we do? Well, what if we did what Paul did in verse 17?

It says in verse 17.

So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the god-fearing Gentiles. And in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. So the first thing he says is reasoning in the synagogue, reasoning the definition of reasoning is the action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way. But as believers and followers of Christ, I would encourage you to reason based on scripture.

For example, Second Timothy, Chapter 3, verses 14 through 17 says you, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of knowing from who you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is. Aspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate equipped for every good work. If you see something in your life that that you are worshipping or you’re depending on above God, then go to the scriptures for reasoning. The scriptures will give you teachings on how to overcome it. It will give you reproof so that you can see the areas in your life that might be off for correction so you can get back on track. Training in righteousness.

Being right with the Lord so that you’ll be equipped for every good work. So the first thing I would suggest, if you want to start this observation, is get some reasoning in scripture.

The second thing that kind of stuck out to me in verse 17 is that Paul spoke to the Jews and the God fearing gentiles and that God fearing really stuck out to me. I’ve noticed that most of my worshipping of idols begins with fear. So I have a fear of maybe looking bad. And so my food is obsessed about what’s healthy, what’s not, when I should eat, how much I should eat.

And I just can’t stop thinking about it because I have a vanity issue, a fear of how I look to myself and to other people.

I have a fear of having too much stress and fear of running out of time for all the things that need to happen. And so I worship convenience. I just thrive. I just love convenience. What can I do to save myself? Five minutes. How can I cut corners here, there so that I can have some convenience in my day?

My most of my idol worship comes from fear. So what if instead I was God fearing? What if I was afraid of not having God be above all?

What what if I was afraid of of life without my creator, without his peace? Well, if I feared not having a strength or a fear, not having his truth as my foundation, I feared not having his unconditional love for myself and for me to give to others around me. What if I feared not having a hope for tomorrow or even a hope for eternity?

That is a God fearing mentality and heart. And that’s humbly what I want to fear God instead of fearing my idols.

The third thing says in verse 17 that really stuck out to me is a lot of times when Paul went into a city, the first place he would go is to the synagogue.

And sometimes it even talks about, you know, on the Sabbath or or once a week he would go in the synagogue and reason with the Jews. But because of this provoking in his spirit. Verse 17 is a little bit different than what he usually did. And it says he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the god-fearing Gentiles.

And in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present, the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. So I want to encourage you to focus and be present in the Lord. Every day we hear this a lot.

Like I have some friends that say every day we fight or you hear people say his mercies are new every day.

God provided the man and daily for the Israelites in the desert. The Lord’s Prayer says, give us this day our daily bread.

I have in my voicemail inbox, it says, my message says, This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice. Some be glad in it. We often refer to daily dependence on the Lord. We have to. The enemy doesn’t take a day off, so we can’t either. Every day we have to ask the Holy Spirit to provoke our spirit to to to think about what idols we may have. Get into his word to help us get back on the right track. There’s several verses I found that I just want to share with you. For you to look up and depend on daily each of these versus talk about a daily dependence on the Lord limitations three versus twenty two and twenty three. Proverbs 8 vs. thirty four and thirty five.

Matthew six. Verse eleven. Luke nine. Verse twenty three. Acts 17. Verse eleven. Isaiah fifty. Verse four.

Write those down and look them up. I want to encourage you to read those yourself.

Let’s have a daily dependence on the Lord.

Well, thank you so much for joining me today. Just to kind of recap what we talked about and act 17 verses 16 and 17. I want to encourage you to observe your life right now. We have time. Let’s do it. Let’s observe our lives.

Let’s pray that our spirits are provoked by what we see then when we find out what that is. Let’s reason based on scripture.

Let’s be a God fearing people and let’s be present with the Lord every day. I don’t know about you, but when I come out of this time of self isolation and being really by myself a lot of the time I want to come out changed. I don’t want to be this. I don’t want to do all of this for nothing. And so I just want to encourage you to do those things.

I would love to come and speak. When we do get out of this self-isolation, I would love to be invited to come speak or encourage any group that you have. Send me a message. Reach out to me on Facebook. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you are encouraged in the Lord.