Anthony George - Doctrinal Sermon

at this time I want to introduce to you our speaker he will be giving us the doctor no sermon his name is Anthony Jorge he's the senior associate pastor at First Baptist Church Atlanta he pastored also in Florida for 17 years for 15 years I'm sorry he is a graduate of Crystal Bible College and also from South the South Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary and I want you to join me in welcoming Anthony George to our pulpit event come dr. Dores well I know everybody's ready for lunch so I'm gonna try to make this quick but you know that's hard to do but I make a commitment to do it I'm proud to be in my sixth year of being a Georgia Baptist since I came to know Jesus as my savior I've been a Texas Baptist of Virginia Baptist of Florida Baptist but I've never been prouder than I am today to say I'm a Georgia Baptist amen I'm also happy to be on the program where I'm actually the one people expect to hear because you know where I serve people expect to hear the other guy and I'm always the pinch-hitter so I'm just glad my name got printed in a program somewhere and yeah and you knew I was the one you were you stuck around to hear whether you stuck around for that purpose or not I'm thankful you're still here when we think about the passage he was just read a moment ago about the Apostle Paul appearing in the city of Athens there it reminds me of how often I am drawn back to this book of Acts when I consider the awesome task that is before us of evangelizing the lost I'm drawn to the book of Acts for a variety of reasons but I'm always intrigued by the key transitions in the book of Acts in my opinion the most notable of which is the transition in the missionary activity from targeting Jews primarily with the Gospel message to shifting the focus to a primarily Gentile audience there are strong implications for that shift when it comes to the way we evangelize as well as how we do discipleship in the 21st century the most vivid example of this is when Paul visited the city of Athens there he confronted the inferior worldviews of the Greek mysticism and mythologies of the of the pantheon of polytheism and he showed how superior the Christian worldview and most especially the gospel of Jesus Christ is to those inferior worldviews when I see Paul getting to Athens and realizing the first stop he made was in the marketplace he went there and began to share his views of God and of Jesus Christ who died for the Athenians and rose from the dead there was some people there who heard him spouting these new and the questionable views and they invited him to appear on the Areopagus to speak to a council by that same name the areopagus a group that convened to listen to the new views and to really decide and render judgments on which views might be most acceptable in the athenian marketplace of ideas so from the marketplace where commerce was transacted now to the marketplace of ideas he stands on the Areopagus and he talks to them about the things that he had observed in their fair city now but the time Paul gets to Athens it is in its diminished state of glory from its illustrious past but there is no question that it still stands strong as the intellectual center of the world it is the the home or the claimed home of Socrates and Plato at the birthplace of what we call philosophy when you think about him being invited to go and appear on the Areopagus to speak to these erudite men of enlightenment I'm reminded of the real meaning of the word philosophy you know what it is it comes from the combination of the Greek words for love and wisdom it means the love of wisdom and when I see that they invited him to come and speak and share his ideas it is a reminder that that's really what philosophy is all about it says in the 21st verse of Acts 17 the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time and nothing but either to tell or to hear some new thing to tell or to hear some new thing as wise and informed as the Greek philosophers were they were still intrigued by new and novel ideas what I would like to say about them is at least they were open to listening here in this cradle of philosophy their framework of wisdom was that a secure worldview could withstand exposure to other ideas this is philosophy for sure and all I can say is we've come a long way from Athens baby because you see we live in a day especially in the United States of pre-determined leftist dogmas these dogmas are intent on silencing competing worldviews in fact the bulk of our academic institutions are no longer true to the liberal arts tradition of exposure to multiple schools of thought and philosophies rather than teaching students how to think these institutions are intent on telling students what they must think and so when a student graduates from one of our state schools or liberal private colleges the they are nothing but products of the academic socialist assembly line and all they know is what they were told to think but they have no idea why they were told to think that and why they chose to what I love about the Christian worldview based upon the Holy Bible and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is that our worldview is not afraid of exposure to the competition we welcome interaction we welcome discourse with people of other views because we understand that our worldview is superior to all other philosophies and dogmas in other words our view can stand the fight because we always come out victorious we're not afraid so we've come a long way from Athens especially when you realize places like UC Berkeley the birthplace of the modern free speech movement has to spend millions of dollars on campus security just to protect those who appear as guest lecturers or speaking as as guests in an auditorium gathering in a student club sponsored event to protect them from the leftist radicals on their campus well there's more I could say about that but suffice it to say these Athenians were open according to scripture to something new and it begs me to ask the question is there really anything new to here whether it was the people of Athens or the people of Atlanta back then or now the ancient wisdom of Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes one nine there is nothing new Under the Sun is there anything of which it may be said Solomon asks see this is new it has already been in ancient times before us if that was true three thousand years ago in Solomon wrote Ecclesiastes and it was true 2,000 years ago when Paul stood in Athens how true is it now there is nothing new Under the Sun now we all love Millennials and if you're smart you're talking about them and you're studying them and you want to figure out how to communicate the gospel to them in your church and its ministries but what amazes me about them is they think they've invented everything that they say is new they are the generation that is giving us the things we've never heard of before they came along whether it is their visions of world peace or their idealizing of socialism a worn-out philosophy that has been proven a failure or the idea that cross-dressing is novelty and you don't have to be the person you were born as all of this is nothing but warmed up leftovers from previous dispensations or maybe it's the concept of wearing sandals made of hemp or taking that hemp and rolling it up and using it in another way or maybe it is drinking earthy coffees and teas grown at high altitudes eating vegan living in a tiny house going off the grid all of this is primitive and is nothing but a microwave version of something that was put in the fridge in the kitchen of yesteryear so it's good for us to know what they believe but it's also good for us to let them know that nothing they think is new is really new after all so when I think about Paul at Athens there were two primary philosophies that he was contending with when he stood on this hill overlooking the marketplace and in the shadow of the Parthenon atop the Acropolis and they were the Epicureans and the Stoics the epicurean saw this the highest ideal as pleasure in life and saw very little significance for the place of the gods the Stoics on the other hand magnified reason above all other virtues they saw nothing bad in pain nothing good in pleasure and so they believed in a dispassionate lifestyle that magnified reason above everything else unlike the Epicureans who dismissed the significance of the gods the Stoics believed in pantheism they said God is everything and all things our God and Paul had a word for both of these as well as for the other philosophies that were at home in Athens I'm amazed by the three things he told them number one he said hey you guys you're very religious now they probably took that as a compliment complement and said well bless your heart we try but he didn't mean it as a compliment you and I know that second thing he says I've walked through your city and I've seen the objects of your worship he was very tactful because what he really wanted to say is I've seen all these demonic idols but he didn't call them that he called them the objects of their worship you've got to know how to communicate tactfully and then thirdly he says what really caught my attention was this statue to the unknown God so what I want to do is just talk briefly about those three comments that he made and we'll be done the first thing he said is I've noticed that you all are religious people that's what he said but that's not really what he meant we know what he said but what he really meant was this while you are very religious people religion does not make anyone acceptable before God and that is a message that we must come back to that religion in and of itself no matter how noble its ideals no matter how virtuous its goals religion has never been able to atone for sin and to cleanse the stain of sin on the heart of man and furthermore religious beliefs are not made true by virtue of the sincerity with which they are held religion itself does not make your beliefs right I would say to you and I know you believe along with me that religion is one of the most effective tools of Satan to seal people in their estrangement from the true and living God as we have now entered into the scene of post denominationalism we must be careful in our new contemporary era not to replace supposedly outdated and powerless forms and methods with merely updated forms and methods and religious systems which prove just as powerless just because they attract large numbers of people and just because they appear to be hip does not mean that they have the accompanying power of the holy spirit upon them our religious structures whether traditional and outdated or hyped up in contemporary our systems and our ways of doing church never saved anyone only the blood of the crucified lamb saves people from sin so he says I noticed your religious people but religion never saved anybody but he went on to say I've noticed the objects of your worship that's what he said this is what he meant idolatry is a lethal substitute for God it's not just a substitute it's a lethal substitute god forbids mankind from worshiping any object or representation of himself he says this in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 you are not to create anything that you would turn around and worship because it is your making and not mine this is one of the core beliefs of the judeo-christian view of God's holiness idolatry is the veneration of objects or products created or manufactured by humans that's the easy definition but I submit to you today that idolatry is also the elevation of what God Himself created to a level higher than God or equal with God it is the worship as Paul would put it in Romans 1 of the creation rather than the one who created it you see when we worship a human being a human being is made by God we are worshipping what he created rather than the one who created him that's idolatry when we worship a tree that is idolatry when we take our warrior pose - and position our feet flat on the floor to soak up the energy of Mother Earth with our yoga stance that is idolatry if we are thinking that earth is God when we assign deity to the essence of the planet or the universe that's idolatry when we assign deity to all of humanity as a whole as though humans are part of God and therefore our God that is idolatry when we are guilty of doing what the Greeks did by defying human reason and human wisdom we are committing idolatry in other words when we worship what God created rather than him who created these things we are guilty of idolatry idolatry is also the worship of a God other than the God of the Bible God says the first commandment no other gods before me and then in Isaiah 45 and verse 5 he says I am the Lord and there is no other there is no God besides me you see we must be reminded today that idolatry is not something about which God is indifferent God is very clear on this it grieves him and it should grieve us when Paul got to Athens we read that in the 17th chapter it says his heart was stirred within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols you see I believe we're ministering in a period that has many parallels with the Athenian culture whereas we are in a post Christian era they were in a pre-christian era and they believed in many gods and you choose the way you want we are in the same kind of society in 21st century America the Bible makes it clear that idols are the tool of the enemy to distract from and to replace the worship of the true God as he is revealed you see the problem with idolatry is it is deceptive we all know this in 2nd Corinthians 4 it says even if our gospel is veiled it is veiled to those who are perishing whose minds the god of this age has blinded who is the god of this age Satan is the god of this age so idolatry is not some neutral force it's demonic in its power but not only is it deceptive it's demonic because in in 1st Corinthians 10 20 Paul says when you offer something or Gentiles offer something to their idols they're actually sacrificing to demons and not to God and he says I don't want you having fellowship with demons so he identifies it as deceiving and as demonic these go hand in hand no wonder Paul was played by idolatry ladies and gentlemen our hearts should break for our culture because our culture is given over to massive idolatry on unprecedented scales in the history of our country I have watched our shift just in my 48 years of life move from an established framework of a Christian worldview whether people were saved or not wasn't the issue but we operated within the framework of believing in the God of the Bible and believing that Christianity was the prevailing religion in our country we have drifted so far away just from that framework of a biblical worldview we are now starting from scratch when we do evangelism and that's why this 17th chapter of Acts inspires me because Paul didn't just confront what they believe and say this is wrong he utilized the forms and objects from their culture he spoke their language and then used those things as a springboard into the gospel whether it was this statue to the unknown God are quoting from Greek poets like empanada san'dera toasts and others who if you continue reading you will see references to but we not only have the challenge of confronting idolatry among the unsaved as pastors of local churches we must confront idolatry among our people and in our own lives in 1st Corinthians 10 and verse 14 Paul writes therefore my beloved flee from idolatry it's interesting how he says don't accommodate it don't cater to it don't facilitate it run away from it so he's saying here religion never makes you acceptable before God therefore you need something more idolatry is a lethal substitute for God stop worshiping things other than the guy who created you and the final thing he said is this the true Almighty God can be known I loved reading that that inscription as the the as it reads in Greek Ignacio feyo Ignacio from which our word agnostic comes I believe that this was a demonstration of courtesy on the part of the Athenians I mean they had a God for every day of the week and it might be an Athenian version of political correctness deity edition because it's like they said we've got statues to all these gods on every street corner and by the way if there's any deity up there we've overlooked we would hate for you to feel excluded so we're gonna put a statue up to the unknown God so no God feels left out it sounds a lot like the way we do business today but Paul said this God that you call an unknown God I want you to understand he can be known because I know him and him I proclaim to you in the day when people are asking is there a God if there is a God how many of them are there and can we even know our message is a clarion call yes there is a God who can be known you are not left to your own devices you are not left to the cultural apparatus is you are not left to figments of your imagination or two tails handed down in a classroom you are left to the God who is spoken in Scripture and that is our message so you see if you're like me and you feel like you're always behind the curb on Keeping Up with what's trending what's going viral what the prevailing world views and thoughts are when I'm prepping messages to take him to the pulpit you will never be able to keep with all that is trending and all that is viral and everything any generation believes in any given period of time but I can tell you what you can keep up with you can keep up with the God you know and so even if you're not well read and well versed and hip and hop and into this or that let me tell you if in doubt go back to the tried and true go back to Jesus crucified and raised from the dead because that's the message that will save the lost from the God who can be known god bless you [Applause] you

Channel: Georgia Baptist Mission Board

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Keywords: God, Jesus, Christian, Georgia, baptist, convention, GBC, SBC, southern, baptists, ministry, missions, church, churches, denomination, Anthony, George, Anthony George, Doctrinal Sermon, Doctrinal, Sermon

Id: Fl9gJzEuUfg

Length: 20min 56sec (1256 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 20 2017