God As We Know Him | Sunday, August 15, 2021

Hey, welcome, and thanks for tuning in to Cross Connection Church today. We're so glad that we get to bring you church at home. I'm Pastor Garrett, and here at Cross Connection Church, we're all about living life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus Christ.

Before we get into the broadcast today, I just want to encourage you. If you're looking for ways to get connected at Cross Connection Church, check out our website, lifeinconnection.com. Stick around after the broadcast for all the announcements and ways that you can personally get plugged in here at Cross Connection Church.

If you came prepared to give today, there are a few different ways that you can do that. First, you can go on our website, of course, lifeinconnection.com or give.lifeinconnection.com, and give right there through our website. Second, you can text the number 84321 on your cell phone, and it will walk you right through all the steps on how to give. Third, you can show up either on a Sunday at 10:30 here on campus, or you can simply mail in your tithe or offering to 1675 Seven Oaks Road in Escondido, California.

So with that, let's go ahead and worship the Lord together. The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now. The Savior knelt to wash our feet; now at His feet, we bow. The one who wore our sin and shame

Is victory! All praise will rise to Christ. The fear that held us now gives way to Him who is our peace. Final breath upon the cross is now alive.

Your name, your name is victory. All praise will rise to Christ our King. Your spirit, I will rise from the ashes

Three thousand years ago, Israel's King David observed, "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows forth His handiwork." The Apostle Paul, with King David's words probably in the back of his mind, wrote to the church at Rome. He said, "Since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made."

These passages and others like them are the basis for a theological concept called general revelation. Through creation and conscience, and our awareness of these things through human consciousness, we are able to recognize that God exists, that He is powerful, and that He is intelligent. Furthermore, when thinking deeply about ourselves and this universe, we can infer truths about concepts like truth, goodness, beauty, morality, love, and other things as well.

According to Paul in Romans, these observable truths are sufficient for making us aware of God's existence. Not only do they make us aware of God's existence, but they also make us accountable. As Paul says to the Romans, we are inexcusable as far as unbelief is concerned. In Romans 1, beginning at verse 20, we read, "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even God's eternal power and Godhead, so that they, humanity, are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened."

Ultimately, according to the Scriptures, there is no excuse for unbelief.

The skeptical and agnostic atheists will, of course, disagree. Bertrand Russell, one of the most outspoken and influential atheists of the 20th century, was once asked during a question-and-answer session following a public lecture he gave. The questioner asked him, "Suppose that you are wrong and one day you stand before God, and He is on His throne of judgment. What will you say to God?" Bertrand Russell replied, "I will say I'm terribly sorry, but You, God, did not give us enough evidence."

What fascinates me is that the very same people who often espouse rationality and what I would call scientism will spend billions of dollars on radio telescope arrays to search for signs of alien life in the universe. They are trying to find even the most rudimentary patterns of coded radio waves. If they were able to find just a very simple sort of pattern coming back in these radio waves from the edges of the universe, they would see that as evidence that there is intelligent life on the other side of the universe.

However, these very same people, who believe those things and put a lot of money toward trying to find extraterrestrials through the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), when presented with the evidence for design in the universe, will oftentimes look at the fine-tuning of the universe, the complexity of DNA, and the remarkable structure of physics. They will conclude from those things that it all happened by random chance and mutation over billions of years—13.8 billion years, to be exact.

Now, again, that's amazing to me. These same people who are looking for just the simplest kind of pattern coming back in the form of a radio wave will say that is an indication of intelligent life. Yet, they look at the complexity of DNA and say it is the result of random chance and mutation over billions of years. Paul says, "Although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened." The heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows forth God's handiwork.

Creation, consciousness, and conscience are intended by the Creator, by God, to compel us to seek for God. As Paul speaks before the intelligentsia of Athens in Acts chapter 17, 2,000 years ago, he brings this to the surface. God, who made the world and made us in this way, did this so that we might seek Him and perhaps reach out and find Him, though He is not far from each of us.

Here is the beautiful thing: those who sincerely seek will ultimately find. I am absolutely convinced of this. Those who sincerely begin to look for the God that is behind all of these things—the complexity of DNA, the fine-tuning of the universe, the structure found in physics—will ultimately find Him. The author of the Book of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 11 that the one who comes to God must believe that God is and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Of course, as I mentioned in my message last time, there is a problem. General revelation through creation—the heavens declare the glory of God, and the earth shows forth its handiwork—along with our consciousness, our awareness of all these things, and our desire to know more, are not sufficient. It isn't enough through general revelation to understand who God is fully.

I believe that we can know that God is. He is the God who is there, and we can deduce from general revelation that He is powerful and intelligent. By not just observing creation, conscience, and consciousness, we can know that God is, and that He is powerful and intelligent. We can also infer certain things about God as we begin to think about all these things around us and to think deeply about ourselves. By inference, I believe we can know that God loves beauty and values truth and justice, among other attributes.

In the same way that my cell phone or even something as simple as this pen can tell me certain things about whoever made it, I recognize that even this very simple tool could not have happened on its own. If I were to find this pen in the wilderness, I would not say that it just happened by random chance and mutation over billions of years. By looking at this pen, I can conclude that there is a maker.

This maker not only exists but also possesses resources, power, and intelligence to pull all those resources together and create this wonderful little instrument. However, while I can conclude that there is a maker who is powerful and intelligent, there are things I cannot know simply by looking at these objects. General revelation falls short in providing a complete understanding of the maker.

By examining the things that are made, I can know that there is a maker who has power and intelligence. I might infer other things about the maker through close examination of this piece of equipment. For example, I might deduce that this person liked to draw or that their name was Shaffer, as indicated on the bell cap. There are different inferences I can make by looking at it, but ultimately, the maker of this object is independent of the thing they have created.

As I observe the creation of the one who made this, I realize that I have very little knowledge of two very important aspects. General revelation, which involves observing the things around us, leaves us wanting for knowledge about what God is like and what God desires. Through general revelation alone, I cannot know God's nature and His will. I can know that He exists and that He is...

God is powerful and intelligent. I can infer various things about Him, but I cannot know His nature, what He is like, and His will—what He likes. I can infer certain things, but I cannot know. However, the unknown God wants to be known. Therein lies the problem: general revelation has its limits, which means that we need a greater form of revelation. We need the God who is there to reveal Himself; we need literally an apocalypse of God.

Now, I'm sure that I probably got somebody's attention when I used the word "apocalypse," but I'm quite certain that this word does not mean what you think it means. The Greek word "apocalypsis," from which we get the English word "apocalypse," means revelation or disclosure. So, we need a revelation or a disclosure of God.

We can learn certain things about Him by looking at creation, by considering our conscience, and by recognizing that we have consciousness. We can determine that God is, that He is powerful, that He is intelligent, and various other things about Him. But we need more than that if we are to know this unknown God. We need God to make Himself known, to reveal what He is like, His nature, and what He likes—His will.

How do you make known what you are like and what you like? If you want somebody to know you, or if you want to know them, how can you possibly make yourself known—your nature and your will? Well, you have to speak. I can't know you, and you can't know me if we don't communicate.

So the question is: Has God revealed Himself in this way? Has God communicated to us in language, in a way that we can comprehend and understand? Has He revealed Himself in this way? Does God speak to us? Can He speak to us? Is that even possible?

Now, of course, as a Christian, I say yes. God has spoken at various times and in various ways. God spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets; that's what the opening of the book of Hebrews says in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1. For the Christian, the answer is yes—God has spoken. Theologians refer to this as special revelation. The heavens declare the glory of God; the earth shows forth God's handiwork. We see God in creation, consciousness, and conscience. So that's general revelation, but special revelation is where God reveals Himself.

To us, He communicates from outside the box of this creation because God is independent of this thing that He has made. Now, the Christian recognizes that this is special revelation, but the skeptic says it is impossible and absurd. They argue that if there is a God, then God cannot speak to us. There is no way, they claim, that if there is a God—and they place a big emphasis on the "if"—He could reveal Himself to us. They believe that we are way too small, and He is way too big; we are finite and limited, and therefore, He cannot possibly speak to us.

For the skeptic, special revelation is absurd and impossible. But is it truly impossible for a master engineer to create something with knowledge and the capacity for some form of intelligence, and then for that engineer to reveal Himself and His will in such a way that the creation can understand, comprehend, and respond? I believe that it is possible.

Here’s the amazing thing: the rational skeptics, who often claim to believe in science rather than faith or religion, actually demonstrate a belief in special revelation. To prove this, I want to share a story. In the early 1970s, there was a company in Albuquerque, New Mexico, called MITZ, which stood for Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems. This company built a device that would probably have fit on this table; it was not very big. They developed this device around a new piece of hardware that had recently been released by a startup out of Santa Clara.

California called Intel, and the new device that Intel had released was built by a company in New Mexico called MITS. This device was the Intel 8080 processor, and MITS named their machine the Altair 8800. MITS claimed that their new device was a microcomputer. At that point in time, no one had really heard much about microcomputers. In pop culture, there were only a few geeky nerds who would go to places like RadioShack and try to piece things together. There were massive computers, huge mainframes that took up entire rooms, bigger than this room here. The idea of a microcomputer—a computer that would sit on your table and that you would be able to use—was something out of science fiction at that moment.

In January of 1975, a publishing company called Ziff Davis, now known as ZDNet, released an article about the Altair 8800 in their magazine, Popular Electronics. Two thousand three hundred miles away from Albuquerque, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a guy named Paul Allen bought a copy of this magazine. As soon as he bought it, he ran over to his friend's dorm room, where a Harvard undergraduate named Bill Gates was. They went through the magazine and were gripped by the whole thing.

You may wonder where I am going with this story from almost 50 years ago, but it is really important. MITS had made an incredible machine that, at that moment, couldn't do anything. Yet, it was front-page news in Popular Electronics in January of 1975. It’s possible that some of you watching this may have even seen that magazine article from all those years ago. According to MITS, this was an incredible machine, but effectively, it was mostly like a giant paperweight. The people who made it were convinced that it was revolutionary. However, despite being an amazing and potentially revolutionary device, they couldn't communicate with it because the Altair 8800 didn't have a language, not even a very basic one. They believed they had something important, but the engineers who had made it needed a way to interact with it.

There was a way to speak to the box, to the computer, in a manner that the box could understand. They needed to come up with a way to express what it was that they wanted this computer to do. It needed to have a language. Two thousand three hundred miles away in Cambridge, after reading an article, these two geeks began writing a basic computer language that could communicate with the box. Without the language, the box was unaware until Paul Allen and Bill Gates created a basic computer language and started a company called Microsoft. They initiated a revolution that, less than fifty years later, has made it possible for you and me to say, "Hey Siri, I want a hamburger," and for Siri to respond.

When I mentioned that, maybe your phone just went off. I actually turned mine off so it wouldn't do that. Now we can speak to the box, and this is phenomenally more powerful than the system they were using all those years ago.

All of that is kind of the long route to make it to this important point: special revelation makes it possible for the Creator to reveal His nature and His will to His creation. Although many rational skeptics question whether general revelation or special revelation is possible, we have witnessed these things actually happen in the last forty-five years. Now, we are able to use this technology without even thinking about it. Every single day, you are using these kinds of things. I am recording this right now, and we are going to broadcast it in a way that can reach around the world instantaneously. You can log on to it and watch it on your device or on your TV. We can do this relatively cheaply, sending information around the world, and all of us are using this every single day.

How are we able to do this? Because we were able to write a language and express our nature—what we are like—and our will—what we like and what we want—to the box, to the computer, and the computer can understand and comprehend.

At this point, someone may say to me, "Okay, Pastor, are you saying that God is a master engineer and that we are a bunch of computers?" Well, yes, we are a bunch of...

Organic computers and God, who engineered all of this with His phenomenal intelligence and amazing power, are the foundation of our existence. He is the one who made all this possible. By giving us consciousness and language to understand Him, He has the ability to reveal Himself to us. However, remember that He is outside of the box; this whole thing that we live in, which we call the universe or creation, is independent of Him. He made it, so He must have a way to speak into it.

God has revealed Himself; He has revealed His existence, power, and intelligence through creation, consciousness, and conscience. This is known as general revelation. We are told in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 1, that God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, has revealed Himself through special revelation. He spoke in languages that people could comprehend, revealing what He is like—His nature—and what He likes—His will.

Through special revelation, God reveals to us His nature and His will. But how do we know if this is true? How do we know if this God, who has apparently revealed Himself, is really God? What test do we have?

For one, I would suggest that we consider what He has revealed about Himself. As we look into the Scriptures that purport to be the revelation of God—the inspired, revealed truth about who God is—we should reflect on what He has disclosed about Himself. We must use the minds that I believe God has given us to judge whether He, who has revealed Himself in the way He has, aligns with what we can deduce or infer about Him through general revelation.

So, what has He revealed about Himself? That is the question I hope you are asking. This brings us finally to Acts chapter 17. If you were with us for the broadcast last week, you know that I started in Acts chapter 17, but we didn't get very far. I mentioned that we would come back to Acts chapter 17 today. For those who weren't with us last week, let me provide a little reminder.

This week, this won't be a review, but maybe it will serve as a little bit of a review. In Acts chapter 17, the Apostle Paul is in the city of Athens 2,000 years ago, and he is there by himself. His other associates are in other cities to the north of him, in what was called Macedonia at that time. While he is in Athens, he does what he always did. He was a Jewish man who was schooled in Jerusalem, so he went to the Jewish synagogue to speak among the Jews and the Gentile worshipers of God who were there.

Paul was also a tradesman; he worked in leather. He would be in the marketplace, striking up conversations. While he is there, he is invited to speak at the Areopagus because the things he is saying are new to the people of Athens. They had not heard any of these things before, so they wanted him to come and speak at this important place. The Areopagus was where the intellectuals, philosophers, and the intelligentsia of Athens would gather.

Acts chapter 17 captures this moment where Paul speaks to that group of people. We find this in Acts chapter 17, beginning at verse 16. While Paul waited for his associates in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols. The entire city was filled with altars dedicated to idols. Therefore, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.

Certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered Paul. These were two schools of philosophy in Athens, dating back 2,500 years to the time of the great philosophers of Greece. The Epicureans were those who wanted to live it up, saying, "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die." The Stoics, on the other hand, rejected all outward influences.

As these philosophers encountered Paul, some said, "What does this babbler want to say? What's he got to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection. This is a key point that we will discuss more later, probably into next week. Paul's message was centered on Jesus and the resurrection.

In verse 19, they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? For you are bringing some strange things."

To our ears, and certainly when you begin to share the things that the Bible speaks about, tells us about God, and reveals about Christ, they will sound strange to the Epicureans and the Stoics of our day. In the marketplace or among religious communities, these things were strange to them. These things are strange to people in our time.

So, in verse 24, you are bringing some strange things to our ears; therefore, we want to know what these things mean. For all the Athenians, I love this in verse 21, and the foreigners who were there spent their time on nothing else but either to tell or hear something new. It sounds like the United States of America or the Western world in 2021.

Well, he continues in verse 22. Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious. For as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: 'To the Unknown God.' Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, him I proclaim to you.

God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He worshipped with men's hands as though He needed anything. Since He gives to all life, breath, and all things, He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings.

So that they should seek the Lord and hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each of us. For in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, "For we are also His offspring."

Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, or something shaped by the art of men's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. Because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has ordained, He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.

I absolutely love this passage. The Scriptures as a whole...

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and it is for the purpose of revealing to us who God is, what He is like, what He likes, and what He has called us to do. It equips us to fulfill His calling. I love this passage because all of Scripture is given to reveal God and His nature. This particular passage stands out to me because Paul is speaking to a skeptical, worldly crowd. He engages them reasonably, as it says that he reasoned with them daily. That is what God wants us to do with the people around us—the Epicureans, the Stoics, the religious, and the non-religious. He wants us to engage with them reasonably.

Not only does Paul engage with these people reasonably, but he also does so boldly. The people Paul addresses are in awe of the world; they value something bigger and greater than themselves, but they are not really aware of what that something actually is. Paul points out that this thing they are in awe of is where we get our English word "agnostic." He tells them that they worship and are in awe of something without knowledge, ignorantly. Paul, inspired by the Spirit of God, reveals what this is.

What does he say in this passage? What does he reveal about God? I just went through this quickly and underlined at least 14 things that this passage discloses about God. There is an apocalypse of God here in this passage. So, what are the 14 things that this passage reveals to us about God?

First, God is a person and not an inanimate force or power. We are introduced to the concept of an inanimate force or power in our world today by people outside the Christian faith who believe differently than we do. You can see it in pop culture, such as in the Star Wars universe, where there is "the Force."

The great psychologists of another age would talk about the corporate or the unconscious of all of us, kind of woven together. There's this force, this power, this collective intellect out there. However, this scripture tells us that God is a person and not an inanimate force or object. Paul says in this passage, "This one whom you worship without knowing, I proclaim to you." He doesn't say, "This thing that you worship without knowing, I want to tell you about it." Instead, he says, "I want to tell you about Him." God is a person.

The second thing we find in this passage is that this God, who is a person, is ultimately personable. This God made everything; we see that here in this passage: "God, who made the world and everything in it."

The third thing we see in this passage is that God is master and Lord of all. Paul states that He is "Lord of heaven and earth."

The next thing we find, number four, in this passage is that God doesn't need us. He doesn't need anything. The fifth point I would make is that God does not need anything that we can give Him. Though He is worthy of all of our worship, He doesn't need us. This is important: God is independent of His creation and does not have any necessity where He needs you or me. I know there are some people, even within the Christian community, who try to say that God is incomplete without us. That's not true. He doesn't need us; He doesn't need anything. There's nothing that you and I can do or give to Him where He goes, "Wow, I didn't have this, and I'm so glad I have this."

The scriptures say in this passage that He does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is He worshipped with men's hands as though He needed anything. He doesn't need us.

The sixth thing that we find in this passage, as we read through it carefully, is that as God reveals Himself, He reveals that He made us for His purpose. He gives to us, or gives to all, life and breath and all things. Everything that we have, He has given it to us.

The seventh thing that this reveals about God is that He has a determined purpose or a determined plan. God made everything for a plan.

Finally, the eighth thing we see in this passage is that His handiwork, all the things that He created, is intended to cause us to seek for Him. Look at what the text says in this passage.

God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has determined a pre-appointed time and boundaries for all people and their dwellings. This is really key in verse 27, which states that the intent is for us to seek the Lord and hope that we might grope for Him and find Him. This leads us right into the next revelation about God.

The ninth thing that this passage reveals is that He is not far away. Paul states in verse 27 that all of this is made in the way that it is so that we would seek for the Lord, that we would grope for Him, and that we might find Him, though He is not far from each of us. I think that's really good news, but that's for another time.

The tenth thing that this passage reveals is that we live and are sustained by God. In Him, we live and move and have our being. The eleventh thing is that nothing we make rightly represents Him. We try to craft all these things to represent what God is like or who He is, but nothing that we could make properly represents Him. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like silver or gold or stone or something shaped by the art of man's devising. There is nothing that we can make that rightly represents God or resembles Him.

The twelfth thing that we find in this passage is that God is merciful and calls us to repentance. Truly, these times of ignorance God has overlooked, but now He commands all men everywhere to repent. He is merciful and calls for us to turn to Him in repentance.

The thirteenth thing that this reveals is that there is a determined end and judgment. Verse 31 states that He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness. There is an appointed end to everything that God has made, including the people that live upon the face of the earth. There is a purpose for which He made them, but there is also a determined end.

This brings us to the very last observation that we make about God as He reveals Himself in this passage. All these wonderful things about God lead us to number 14: the resurrection of Jesus is the proof of all these seemingly incredible things. See what it says in this passage: He has appointed a day on which God will judge.

The world in righteousness by the man, whom He has ordained, and He has given assurance of all of this by raising Him from the dead. These are among the most basic things that we know about God's nature and will as they are revealed in the Scripture. I would suggest to you that they are not in conflict. These revelations of God are not in conflict with what we can observe and infer from the general revelation of creation, conscience, and consciousness. All of these things that are revealed about God, that God reveals about Himself here in this passage, hang upon a single miraculous proof.

A proof that was just as improbable to the first-century Athenian intelligentsia as it is improbable to those living in the 21st century. When Paul speaks to the Athenians in this passage, he states that God has given assurance of all these things about who God is—the unknown God making Himself known. He has given assurance of all these things by raising Him from the dead.

Verse 32 says, "When they heard of the resurrection from the dead, some mocked Paul, while others said, 'We'll hear you again on this matter.'" The resurrection, both then, 2000 years ago, and now in the 21st century, is the sticking point. However, the resurrection is also either the proof point of Christianity or the breaking point of Christianity. All that I am teaching you about the nature of God and what the Bible reveals about God is either proved and validated by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, or if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, this is pointless.

This is exactly what Paul says in First Corinthians chapter 15: "If Christ be not raised from the dead, we are pitiable, and all of this is for naught." So, the resurrection, which is what Paul was speaking about at the beginning of this discourse, is crucial. What was it that he was talking about? Well, they said, "I don't know; he speaks about some foreign gods," because he keeps talking about this resurrection. Then, at the very end of his discourse in the Areopagus to the intelligentsia of Athens, he says, "Jesus was raised from the dead," and the people go, "Oh, time out! That's where you lost us." We were interested in all this stuff about this God who is there.

Powerful, the God who created all things, but then you said there's a man who died and rose from the dead. They said, "All right, we're out. We're done." This is either the proof point or the breaking point of Christianity. It invited mockery 2,000 years ago, and it invites mockery today.

All of this that I am talking about may seem incredible or at least improbable to anyone who hears it for the first time. However, though it may seem improbable or incredible, there is something within every single person that, when we hear this story about God as He reveals Himself in Scripture, connects with us at a deep level. We would actually say, "I would love for this to be true."

I think that this whole thing would have been probably incredible for someone like Paul. Paul was not a stupid person; he was an intelligent person. All of this would have been incredible to a guy like Paul until he met the resurrected Jesus. When he met Jesus, who had been crucified in Jerusalem, buried dead in a tomb, and then raised from the dead, Paul had a firsthand encounter with the resurrected Jesus. He had to step back and go, "Well, I guess this is all really true."

If it is, in fact, true that Jesus rose miraculously from the dead, then everything you think you know has to be reevaluated. God has given assurance to all of this by raising Jesus from the dead. Paul says this in verse 31 of Acts chapter 17.

Now, the Athenians gave Paul a hearing on all these things that he had to say. They brought him up to the Areopagus to be heard by the philosophers and the smart people of his day. They gave him a hearing right up to the point that he mentioned resurrection, and then they mocked him and sent him away.

Immediately after this, after they mocked him and sent him away, we read in Acts chapter 18, verse 1: "After these things, Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth." When Paul came to Corinth after he had been in Athens, what did he do? You can look over in your Bible if you have it available or use your app. Go to First Corinthians and look at First Corinthians chapter 2, because right after he left Athens, he went to Corinth. Years later, Paul wrote two letters that we have to the church at Corinth, and he says this in...

First Corinthians, chapter two: "And I, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come with excellence of speech." Think about that. He leaves Athens, where he speaks to these people with this well-articulated point, but his whole point was bringing them to this important key: the resurrection. He says, "And I, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except for Jesus Christ and Him crucified." I determined I wasn't going to say anything more than Jesus Christ and Him crucified and raised from the dead.

Just before that, in First Corinthians, chapter one, verse 18, he says, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing." Think about this: this message of a crucified Messiah who was buried in a tomb and rose from the dead three days later is foolishness in the first-century world and foolishness in the twenty-first-century world. "For the message of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to those who are being saved, it is the power of God."

"For it is written, 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.' Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those that believe. For the Jews request a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews, it is a stumbling block, and to the Greeks, foolishness. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

In His wisdom, God has revealed Himself. First, He reveals Himself in general revelation through creation, consciousness, and conscience. The heavens declare the glory of God; the earth shows forth His handiwork. His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, so that they are without excuse.

Then, God reveals Himself through special revelation. God, who is outside the box, communicates in a language that those inside the box can comprehend and understand. He reveals what He is like, His nature, and what He likes, His will. But even that has a way of not going far enough. Finally, God reveals Himself in personal revelation through the incarnate Christ. God became a man to reveal His love and His grace.

Character, God's incarnate power and wisdom are on display to the worldly Greeks. It's foolishness to the self-righteous religious Jews; it's a stumbling block. But to those who are being saved, it is the very power of God. All of these things seem improbable; they seem hard to believe, and they all zero in on one individual and one extremely important event: Jesus and the resurrection. That's where we're going next time, but you'll have to join us next week to get the rest of the story. We'll see you next time.

Father God, I pray that you would cause these things to be in our hearts. Lord, speak to us. I pray that you would help those who do have belief, who trust that these things are true. Help them to have boldness to reason about these things with skeptics—religious skeptics, non-religious skeptics, the Epicurean, the Stoic philosophers that sit in the cubicle next to us, or on the same construction site, or in the same classroom as everybody gets ready to go back to school.

All these things, Lord, I pray that you would give us the boldness and the passion to speak reasonably to the people that we interact with. Then we go back to these very basic things. First things first, we go back to what is the world, the cosmos, the universe. What does creation tell us? What is the fact that we know we have consciousness? What does that tell us? What is the conscience, this moral inclination for justice, rightness, goodness, beauty, and truth? What does it tell us?

As we begin to look at the pages of Scripture, what does it reveal about who You are, and how does that align with everything that we see in us and in this world? God, I pray that You'd help my brothers and sisters, those who do know You, to recognize that we have a reasonable faith. It's not some blind, insane trust; we have a reasonable faith in the living God. You have revealed Yourself, and I pray that You would give us the ability, the power, and the boldness to be able to reveal You to others. For we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

The tomb where soldiers watched in vain was borrowed for three days. His body there would not remain; our God has robbed the...

Grace, our God, has your name. Your name is victory. All praise will rise to Christ, our King. Oh, your name! Your name is victory. All praise will rise to Christ.

By your Spirit, I will rise from the ashes of defeat. The resurrected King is resurrecting me. In your name, I come alive to declare your victory.

Thanks for joining our broadcast today. We want to take a moment and invite you to join us live in person here at our location.

Escondido Campus will meet at 10:30 on Sunday morning, so check that out if you can make it. We'd love to have you here live in person at 10:30. If you'd like to find more information about Cross Connection Church, be sure to check out our website, lifeinconnection.com. God bless you guys!

Good morning, Cross Connection! I hope you are all doing well. We have a few announcements for you this morning. Coming up this month on August 28th, which is a Saturday morning, we have a food packing day. I want to encourage you to invite your family and friends. This event is for Sue Refugio, a ministry that serves Argentina, Paraguay, and Peru. We will be packing 20,000 meals here at Cross Connection Church on that Saturday morning, August 28th, from 9:00 to noon. We want to encourage you to sign up for that day so you can serve with your family and friends. You can register at events.lifeinconnection.com.

For you campers out there, many of us here at Cross Connection love camping! We want to invite you to Herky Creek, which is near Idyllwild. We have some group sites reserved from September 17th through the 19th, which is a Friday through Sunday. If you would like to attend our church camping trip, you can sign up at events.lifeinconnection.com. It is $20 per person, and for families, it is $40 total, with no extra charges. This fee is just to cover our costs for renting the space, and we would love to have you there. It's going to be such a blast!