Acts 14:8-19

Worshipping God on Our Own Terms  

October 6, 2002

One of the more creative movies to come out in the last few years was the Peter Wier film The Truman Show. The Truman Show is about a man named Truman Burbank--played by Jim Carey--who was adopted as a newborn by the OmniCam Corporation. The OmniCam then created an entire city on a movie set and placed Truman in this artificial city called Seahaven without Truman knowing any of it was fake. The enormous studio of Seahaven is filled with 5,000 hidden cameras, as people across the world watch every step of Truman’s life live on television. Of course Truman goes through life in Seahaven thinking that everything and everyone around him are real.

The creator and director of the Truman Show is a messianic figure named Christof, played by Ed Harris. For 30 years Truman is content in Seahaven, with its perfect sky, computer monitored climate control, a wife and best friend who are really actors. Truman’s reality is meticulously manufactured and manipulated by Christof, yet it’s the only reality Truman knows. At least until a series of accidents start Truman questioning this reality, until finally he figures it out and walks off the set into the real world.

Some people think that belief in God is like Truman in The Truman Show. People believe in God, these critics claim, because that’s the only reality that they’ve been presented with. Like the movie set of Seahaven, organized religion has meticulously manufactured and manipulated circumstances to cause people to believe in the illusion of God. These critics point out that there’s no denying that people who believe in God are happy and content, like Truman in his world. However behind the set, critics claim, doesn’t lay God, but merely human directors like Christof, who pull the right strings and orchestrate the right circumstances to make belief in God appear real.

You see, even though Truman was happy in Seahaven, he was also tragic because his happiness is based on something that’s not real. And critics of religion claim that people who believe in God are in the same boat; we’re tragic, pathetic figures, because our sense of happiness and meaning in life is no more real than the movie set of Seahaven. True liberation comes for us the way it came for Truman, to turn our back on our make-believe world and courageously venture into the real world, a world without organized religion pulling the strings, a world where God is rejected as a relic from the unenlightened past.

It was the 19th century German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach who first claimed that belief in God was a wish fulfillment. According to Feuerbach, we project all our hopes and desires onto an ideal person thereby creating God in our image. Feuerbach originated this idea, but Sigmund Freud popularized the idea to the rest of the world. To use the language of The Truman Show, people should realize God was a myth and Christianity only a set, and in mass we’d walk into the real world. (introduction taken from sermon by T. Peck, The God Who is Real, 4/01 LifeBible Fellowship Ch.)

But if we are to throw off the vestiges of organized religion a plaguing question remains. If we walk out of the Seahavens we call religion into the real world, how do we know we’ve entered the real world? Are we, like Truman, living in a bubble, manipulated so that we believe what is a fabrication or is it those who think reality is godless in an illusion? If that is the case how then can we know what we must know? We take in information, we process the facts, but they are always filtered through the grid of our own preconception. Some would then claim that there is no truth with a capital T, but only the truth you personally perceive. But the resultant solipsism compels us to look beyond the simplistic response that we can’t know the truth. To put it another way, if truth begins and ends within our own minds, then we will never be able to answer the questions we ask which matter the most.

In our passage this morning in Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas encountered a people who misperceived reality because their framework, their religious grid misinterpreted the facts. Paul quickly sought to rectify their false beliefs, but in so doing, show us how to speak with those who do not share our most basic presuppositions about the God who made us.  READ Acts 14:8-28.

Two weeks ago we left Paul and Barnabas traveling through the mountainous region of southern Turkey. In each city there were those who embraced the gospel, knowing for the first time that their sins were forgiven by the work of Christ. But where there is acceptance of the gospel, there is also rejection. In those towns were those who stirred up the crowds, seeking to be rid of these troublemakers. So Paul and Barnabas were once again forced to flee Iconium as the plot to kill them came to light.

Leaving that town they traveled about 20 miles to Lystra a backwater town in the hill country of the region. During Paul’s time it was a Roman military post, connected with the outside world by means of a Roman road. There is no evidence of a Jewish synagogue, either in Acts 14 or discovered by archeologists since the town was rediscovered in 1885. We will learn of one family of Jewish extraction, as Paul finds Timothy there in next visit (16:1).

Luke sets the scene for us as Paul and Barnabas have already begun their work. In an incident parallel to Acts 3 where Peter healed the lame man at the Temple in Jerusalem, so here we are told of a man lame since birth. But while he could not walk, he could listen and so he does listen to Paul

The verb here implies an ongoing listening, that he was hanging on every word of the gospel. No doubt Paul noticed this attentive listener and could well see that he was responding to the promise of sins forgiven by Christ. So as an illustration of what it means to be made whole by God’s grace, Paul looks intently at the man and loudly instructs him: “Stand upright on your feet!” With that the man was healed and understandably the people were amazed. But what happened next showed that the people were not listening to what Paul had been saying since he arrived in Lystra.

Crying out in their native tongue, they proclaimed that the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men.” What is more they began to address Barnabas as Zeus and Paul as Hermes. But since they were speaking a language which neither Barnabas nor Paul knew the two missionaries did not catch on what was happening until they noticed the priest of Zeus bringing out oxen.

To understand why the people responded as they did it is important to know more background.

Zeus was, of course, the chief of the gods. Perhaps Barnabas’ role as leader was evident to the people. Hermes was the god of oratory and the inventor of speech. As Paul was doing the talking, perhaps that is why they assigned him that title. But an aspect of Lystra’s history would have caused them to respond with such welcoming praise.

Some fifty years before the Latin poet Ovid had narrated in his Metamorphoses an ancient legend. The supreme god Jupiter (Zeus) and his son Mercury (Hermes) once visited this hill country, disguised as mortal men. While incognito they sought hospitality but were rebuffed a thousand times.  At last, however, they were offered lodging in a tiny cottage, thatched with straw. Here lived an elderly peasant couple called Philemon and Baucis, who entertained them out of their poverty. The pair was rewarded as their shack was transformed into a marble-pillared, golden roofed temple and they became its priests. Upon their death they were granted immortality by being transformed into a mighty oak and linden tree. As for the others who rejected the incarnate gods…they were destroyed by a great flood.

If the gods were to revisit their district, they were anxious not to suffer the same fate as their inhospitable neighbors. They would do it right. Their own culture and legends demanded appropriate worship. Unfortunately their worship was terribly misguided as they were quite misinformed regarding the nature of God. Paul and Barnabas quickly put an end to their false worship and sought to set them straight as to true worship.

Their response to us may seem odd as they ripped their clothes. This action was a common Jewish protest for blasphemy. What they did is what Herod Antipas in Acts 12 should’ve done when the sycophantic crowds proclaimed him divine. He accepted the worship and died.

As Paul and Barnabas rushed into the crowd, now aware of their intent to worship them, we have the first sermon given to a purely pagan audience. Paul had been proclaiming the gospel in Lystra up to this point. The man he healed responded in faith to the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. But there seemed to be a disconnect for the rest of the town folk.

So Paul starts from the beginning, not with the work of Christ which presupposes knowing the God of the Old Testament, but begins with the God of creation. Their worship is worthless because they are not worshipping the one true and living God.

God is Alive

It may seem odd that he would start by calling God the “living God”. The crowds did not doubt the existence of gods; in fact their willingness to sacrifice showed that they thought the gods were alive in their presence of Barnabas and Saul. But Paul is saying that their spirituality is not enough. Their sincerity of worship is not sufficient. Rather there is One who must be worshipped, the One who created them, the One who even now demands their adoration.

According to the Greeks, Zeus rules the sky. His brother Poseidon ruled the sea and brother Hades, the underworld. Yet while they ruled these components, they did not create them. The gods of old who made the sky, earth and sea were long gone, overthrown by the present gods. But this is not the case. There is but one God who made all things. There is a single Being behind it all.

Nature is unified, coherent. There are not competing beings seeking control. There is not a pantheon of powers and it is up to us to figure out the right balance, keeping each god happy by doing the right things at the right time.

Most of the people we come in contact would not respond as the Lystrians. Few of our associates would need this reminder. But that we must turn from vain things, empty ways of thinking, to a living God is still very pertinent today. What do we need to learn from the living God who created all things?

We don’t worship nature, we hid from it. We so insulate ourselves that we have ceased to be able to see God’s handiwork in creation. We have created a Seahaven of our own; we worship ourselves as our own creator. For many people in our culture God is not alive for they have no sense of the world in which they live.

There is nothing like a violent storm, a hurricane hitting the Gulf Coast, to remind us that we are indeed finite and that it is God who is in control. But the vanity we hold to is that we can control our own destiny, we can insulate ourselves from all disease and sickness so that we need not face God on Judgment day. But that there is a universe still ticking away is not a testimony to our technology but that God is still very much alive.

Our call to worship this morning from Psalm 146 reminds us of this truth. Warning us in v3 not to trust in ourselves, in our government leaders to provide for us what we need. Rather our trust must be in the God who created us. It is he who can help us.

God is Patient

That God has done nothing to those who worship falsely is not evidence he doesn’t care. Nor does it mean that false worship is tolerated by a benevolent being. Rather for generations God has permitted nations to do as they please. God’s silence may be taken to mean that he is not alive or that he does not care. But that is not the case. Rather he is patient.

Paul is moving his audience along an important trajectory. It is one thing to say that God is alive, but that is not necessarily good news. To know that our Creator is alive and that we consistently worship him improperly should frighten us. But while we need not live in fear, we can’t claim ignorance of God being both alive and loving as see in v17 that he has left a witness.

God is Apparent

God’s patience does not mean that he is silent. God’s patience is seen in that he has, throughout his creation, shown himself to be and that he is good. God is there and he is not silent.

The witness God left shows us something about his character, that he is good. Paul identifies two specific ways God showed his goodness and I doubt he chose random acts. The rains and fruitful seasons relate to the identification the people made with Barnabas and Paul.

According to Greek myth, Zeus, the god of the heavens was the god of weather. He sent the rains which watered the earth. His son and messenger Hermes was the provider of fruitful harvests. Paul redirects his audience from false worship to the true. He does so through creation

Everyone is familiar with Sherlock Holmes and his faithful companion Dr. Watson. Holmes's keen power of observation solved countless crimes.  Yet few of us know that Holmes thought deduction and observation were also beneficial to religion. Tucked away in "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty," Holmes is found studying a rose.  Watson narrates:

"He walked past the couch to an open window and held up the drooping stalk of a ... rose, looking down at the dainty blend of crimson and green. It was a new phase of his character to me, for I had never before seen him show any interest in natural objects.

"There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion,' said Holmes, leaning with his back against the shutters...' Our highest assurance of the goodness of [God] seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its color are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.'"

God’s benevolence is an ongoing testimony that he not only alive, but that he cares for us. We call this witness general revelation. God’s calling card is written in the starry night, in the majestic mountains, in the warmth of a babies smile. But that powerful testimony that God is has short-comings.

Holmes’ waxing poetic over the beauty of the rose will lead one predisposed to see God’s goodness, but for the one whose finger drips blood from the rose’s thorn may conclude something quite the reverse. Such a person may think God is cruel to give such a beautiful flower with such a thorn.

General revelation, God’s handiwork in creation leaves us all without excuse, but we need special revelation, God’s written Word to make sense of the creation. The short coming of creation, the necessity of the good news that Paul brought to the Lystrians is seen in a parallel passage, Rom 1.

In Acts 14 Paul builds a bridge with his audience by pointing them to creation which surrounds them. But in Romans 1 Paul establishes that in light of this creation all people are responsible before God. No one can claim ignorance of God. They received revelation in God’s providential works of creation and had perverted that revelation by worshiping nature itself, exchanging the Creator for the creation. The Gentiles were thus without excuse.

We don’t know how they concluded this sermon. Luke tells us they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them. But the crowd who one day were ready to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas were the next wanted to sacrifice Paul. When Jews from Antioch and Iconium arrived in Lystra they quickly persuaded the crowd to stone Paul.

How similar to the crowds who gathered in Jerusalem years before. As Jesus entered on the donkey the crowds cheered with excitement as their savior had come. They were willing to do anything, as long as they got what they wanted, a savior who would remove the problems of this life. But when it became apparent that he was a much different savior, those same crowds just days later shouted for his execution.

It is the same today. Almost everyone will receive him as the greatest man who ever lived. Just leave it there and everything will be fine. Enlightened circles are comfortable with calling him the supreme psychologist of history. He is safe as the most important person of all time. The safe, sweet Jesus, meek and mild – sentimental, impotent, distant – is no threat. The world will do anything for a Christ who is limited by our own perspectives. What it will not allow him is to put forth his own claims. The world will not receive him as Lord! We all sometimes wear blinders as we read the Bible, seeing what we think supports our preconceived system and missing those things that do not fit. It is only with God’s help that such a serious error can be avoided or changed.  (Hughes, Acts, 187)

Unless we allow God’s Word to correct our errors we, like those from Lystra, will worship God on our own terms, living in the bubble of our self made Seahavens. But we must confront the reality that our demands our attention on his terms. But the good news of the gospel is that God is good, he feeds us even now with these common elements of bread and wine.

As we come to this table we are fed by God’s goodness once again. While the witness from natures leaves us without excuse, it is his witness in the Word that tells us how we might be right before God.