City Central Church Podcast
God's Generosity
Chris Hippe discusses humanism and God's generosity.
tonight I want you to open your book, your Bible to the book of Acts chapter 17 tonight. We are going to hit something very directly head on tonight and it's an epidemic, everybody say epidemic. We are going to come right down the throat of humanism tonight. We're going to come right down the throat of lukewarm living. We're going to come right down the throat of religion and it's going to be so happy because the answers are so wonderful tonight. It's just so wonderful. I have had an amazing week this week and I just can't help but I told Ryan this morning on the phone. He said how are you doing? I said I'm like a kid in a candy store. I don't even know how to explain it. I laugh at myself, I'm laughing with the Lord, it's the most enjoyable time with the Lord because when he starts rewarding you, meaning you and me for the hard labor and the faithfulness that you have put in and I have put in, it's such an enjoyable process. Sometimes the valley can be difficult, amen, but when you start going into the rewards you start to see it and you go man Lord that was all worth it, let's do it again. Praise God. And so we're going to head on an epidemic tonight, everybody say epidemic. This is an epidemic that's been around really since the early, since Paul's time, it's an epidemic that's been around since the early church fathers and what it is, it's a mindset that comes in and it starts to mess with our minds a little bit and so we want to look at it tonight, but more importantly we want to look at how Paul dismantled something called humanism and how it works. And so I want you to look at Acts 17 and let's start at verse 16. Now what we see here is, let's set the stage for a minute, we see that Paul has just come out of, he's in a second missionary journey and we see that he has just come out of Thessalonica, he's there with Silas and he picked up Timothy and Lystra on the way and they had just a massive revival, great multitudes of people just got saved. I mean it was like great multitudes, this is like the dreams that you have, some of you have posters on your wall, like a Reinhard Bonke poster that would show great multitudes, it's that type of revival that was hitting in Thessalonica. And then all of a sudden what happens in Thessalonica is there are some people that don't really like Paul called the Jewish synagogue rulers and they start running him out of town and they run him to Berea. And in Berea you know that's where they tested every word and many of them started to understand what Paul was saying, but then what happened is all of the Pharisees and the Jewish leaders chased him down into Berea which is like 45 miles away and caught him there and stirred up a whole nother hornet's nest and so what all of them said is hey Paul we need to get you out of here, you need to go far far away, you have this anointing or what some people like to say grace to stir things up, praise God. And so what happened is they sent him down to Athens and what we see is Timothy and Silas stay behind and manage the show, could you imagine that being your call? You're sending Paul down the way, many many miles and you stick around and try to man handle all of the wild religious leaders that want to kill him and you. Wouldn't that be a mantle, praise God. So that's where Timothy and Silas they're hanging back there and we catch up with Paul who lands in Athens in verse 16 and it says this, "Now what Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw the city was given over to idols. Now we can't go any further until we point out some very important things. Paul actually waited." Did you see that? Paul actually waited, you know there's an amazing thing that Paul had the ability to wait. Now I look at that and I go well praise God for Paul, that's something that I've been looking for for a long time. He has the ability to wait before God. Now how many of you know that when you wait before God the flesh dies right in that process? When you wait your flesh dies, when you're looking for something and you're going man Lord where's the action? Where's the action? And you're in a waiting season for God to pull something into existence. There's something about the flesh dying in a very rapid wait. Someone gave me a hallelujah or an amen, that that's what happens. Now there's also something about a person that has the ability to wait. That is a person that knows the sovereign hand of God and that God moves sovereignly. Which simply means he's above all, he's in all and through all and he is the one that will bring everything to pass. And so here we find Paul. Now just imagine Paul goes to Thessalonica and there's mass revival and then someone, a person, forces him out, people force him out to Berea and then he's there and more people force him out and then he goes down to Athens. Now if he didn't understand the sovereign hand of God and that God moves in sovereign ways, he would have been all bound up. He would have been, he would have been all flustered. Now I know how I get when I miss an airplane. I know how I get when I start to, I know when I just start to realize I should have done this and I start to think about how all of what the I should have done. And Paul has this sovereign ability, he has this ability to know that God is sovereign and that he uses all things for the betterment of those that love him. And so we find Paul in a very, very amazing spot that he's just basically saying nothing's by chance here. God sent me to Athens for a reason. And so there he is and he's sitting there in Athens as a place that is well known. It was kind of the capital, if you will, of all of Greece at the time and they loved God's. Everybody say loved God's. Now these are the lower case G gods. These are those that find themselves trying to look around and find all of these different gods and they would sit around all day and talk about God's. So he is then provoked within him when he saw idols. Now it's an interesting fact if you think about Paul's life, here he is and he's provoked by idols. And I started to look at it and I thought, man, what would Paul do if he came into our world today? And if he started to look around at all of the TV and all of the materialism and all the video games and all the blood and gore and all these things that are atrocities and idols around, what would he get provoked by? And I started to think, man, Lord, I want to be provoked more because Paul had this ability to come into Athens and he was provoked by them, meaning he was a little irritated by him. Meaning there was something that was not right and it was not okay and he had to do something about it. He couldn't look at it in the eye and go, that's just the way it is. You see, Paul had the spirit so enlarged inside of him that he saw it and he's like, I need to do something. He was provoked, irritated. He had to do something about it. So within him, therefore he reasoned in the synagogues, notice he's then went to the synagogues, with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there, then certain Epicurean, everybody say Epicurean. Now these are strange sort of folk, these Epicureans, these guys were actually the ones that were in pursuit of pleasure. That was their mantra. In fact, not only pleasure, but fine living. And in fact, not just fine living, but fine dining, they loved the five-star meal. They loved the smooth steak. These are the ones that whatever it took, they just wanted to feel very good. So everybody say Epicureans. So they're trying to enjoy life and then the Stoics, everybody say Stoic. There's these strange folks that actually endured life. They were kind of the mundane. Too much was too much and too little was too little. They liked kind of a monotone existence of life. They loved reasoning. They loved principles. Does this sound familiar to a world that you know and I know? They loved to reason. They loved to be self-sufficient. They took pride in themselves and their intellects in this higher frame of thinking. And so there was really no need for God within their paradigm, nor was there any need for God in the Epicurean paradigm. And so here they are. They're the philosophers. And here Paul encountered them. And some said what does this babbler want to say? Now how incredible is that? What a shot in an insult. What does this babbler want to say? Other said he seems to be a proclaimer for God's because he preached to them Jesus in the resurrection. And then they took him and brought him to the Eropagus. Everybody say Eropagus? I have no idea if that's actually how you say that name, but let's just say it is, okay? They went to the Eropagus saying may we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak. For you are bringing some strange things to our ears therefore we want to know what these things mean. For all the Athenians and the foreigners who spent some time there, time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing. So you see, they show their hand, the Eropagus was actually kind of the governing board that all of the greatest thoughts had to go through. And so if there's something that perked interest in on the street, then someone would go to the Eropagus and go, yeah, you really need to talk to Billy. Billy's got this great new theory you need to hear about it. They were kind of the governing board of reasoning. Imagine being on that board, how much fun that would be. Anybody like producing in here? Anybody a producer? Do you like to accomplish things, check things off a box, anything like that? I got Kalanani in the back, anyone else there? They do none of that and that's actually the Forte. The highest of the high is doing nothing and doing a lot all at the same time, meaning talking. So this is the Eropagus and here they actually do nothing else other than talk. Now, I heard a commercial this week, it's on boredom. It was a commercial on the radio and it was for gambling. And it was this young man that picks up the phone and he says, "Hello?" And the other guy says, "Hey, what are you doing?" He goes, "Nothing?" And I just thought, "Isn't that a prophetic statement for our entire planet right there?" Nothing. What are we really doing? We are, I mean, what are people actually doing across the world? They're doing nothing and they go, "Hey, why don't we go gamble?" And I thought, "Well, isn't that exactly the reason why people go gamble because there's nothing to do?" "Hey, man, this is what false comforts are all about. False comforts find a person that's born." Ask King David. You see what I'm saying? So, here we find the Eropagus that do nothing but talk and are extremely lethargic, but too gifted of mind and just sit there and talk. Oh, frightening. Okay? So this is the Eropagus. They're in a high state of boredom. Then Paul stood in the midst of the Eropagus and said this. "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." Now I want you to imagine, here he, Paul, comes in and he basically comes into a place that says that the principle would be the science that considers truth. That's what philosophy is. Here comes Paul and he goes, "Hey, you want answers? I got answers for you." His name is, and he starts unleashing. Now, I want you to imagine, put yourself in Paul's shoes. You come into an environment that is so steeped with higher thinking. You're really trumped already intellectually. Your mind is already trumped. You can't beat them per se by some fleshly experience. I would be extremely intimidated to go walking in that environment. But here comes Paul walking right in and he goes, "Hey, guess what? I see a tomb outside and it says tomb to the unknown God." He says, and he says, "Therefore, the one whom you worship without knowing, him I proclaim to you." He boldly stands up and says, "Listen, all of you higher thinking, folks, let me tell you something." He goes, "I have something to proclaim to you and I know who it is that you don't know of but you long to know of and he is the only way." So how would you imagine as connected as Paul's day was to our day and the human reasoning that is so steeped in our understanding? Epicureans in our modern day are fleshly. It's the desire for my pleasure. I want to feel good, not too much, not too little of the Stoics. It's everywhere. So what would Paul say to our nation, to the world at large, how would he come and explain because there's something about the gospel that he knows and experiences to deliver? What is it about God that he knows that would be important to dismantle this? So he says, "I proclaim to you," number one is this, "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." He starts by walking in to the Eropagus and he says, "Can I tell you guys something? I'm going to give you a Part 2 message. Part 1 is going to dismantle your entire religion and Part 2 will make you feel like you should have known better." Part 1 is this, "My God is great. He's great over it all." In fact, he was the one that created everything. He was the one that he said in the beginning. And if you understand that, Stoics and Epicureans, if you understand that in the beginning was my God, then your whole religion is deep-bumped. It's done. It's over. If you understood my God and his greatness, then you would know the simple fact that everything in is him in the heaven and the earth is what he created and he does not dwell in temples made with hands. He made it all. When was the last time we thought about God's greatness? Think about how vast he is. Think about how large he is. Has anyone found yourself taking that for granted? We can get so caught up in so many other things. But Paul says, "Draw your eyes unto the greatness of the Lord and there you will see the answers and the humanism will be dismantled and fleshly reasoning and all those things that we see out in a large will be dismantled when we understand the greatness of God." You see the whole, the three-part question of where did I come from and why am I here and what am I going to do? No other religion has that answer. The Epicureans, that was their ultimate attempt to figure out those three questions. That was the Stoics ultimate attempt to figure out those three questions. And here Paul comes and he goes, "The tomb of the unknown God? Hey, I know him." And guess what? He made everything. Those guys just sitting there going, "You know him? How do you know him? I don't understand what you're saying." And so he starts with the greatness of God. You know, it's finding ourselves then struggling and leaving behind the philosophies and here comes truth right in the door. And so if that weren't enough, he then continues on and does the second part. He says, "Nor is he worshiped with men's hands as though he needed anything since he gives to all life, breath and all good things." Everybody say, "He gives." Everybody say, "He gives." He comes to a people that see stone and rock and images and they call them gods. They have no ears to hear, no eyes to see. They have none of it. And he comes in and he says, "My God is actually the one that gives to you. Versus I give to him like every other God. I give to him." He comes and waltzes in. He goes, "My name is Paul and I want to tell you I know the tomb of the unknown God. I understand it. I know who lives and reigns. Number one, he's good. But number two, he's great and he gave you life and breath and everything under heaven." And so within him, he is a giver of all life, breath and heaven. You know, this is easy for us to overlook and just go, "Oh, that's great." I understand, I understand the greatness of God, but the greatness of God, if we grasp hold of that and bring it down, that so affects our current day that we cannot function the same. Because when I look at his greatness, what I start to reflect on is simply the life, the breath and everything under it and all things are come from him. And so I'm able to have the great joy of going, "He gives me life and breath." And then I start to reflect on the cross that he loves me even before I loved him. How easy is it even for our daily life to go, "God wants this from me. God wants this from me. God wants this from me." But God never wants us to forget. It's actually, he is the original. He's the one that gives to us. He's the one that gives to us. You know, in the human divine cooperative, there's a whole lot of divine. Do you know, that's actually biblical. There's a whole lot of divine, but we think the human is so irately big, but there's so much divine because he is so great. So Paul comes in and he says, "Listen, it's the greatness of God and it's the goodness of God." And then he keeps going. And he says in verse 26, "And he has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings so that they should seek the Lord." So he comes in, he keeps speaking, so they seek the Lord in the hope that they might grope 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 also some of our own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. You know, it's a fascinating thing. It says, "Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's hands and devising." He then goes from the greatness of God to the goodness of God and then he goes right into the government of God. He goes right into the sovereignty of God's hand. He starts then to address the very fact that he is the one that has made everything and has determined all their preappointed things and their dwellings. So what we find here is the government of God. And this is something that God pleases, wants to do things, how he does things, and there's a sovereign nature of God's hand. So Paul comes in and he blows it right out of the water and he says, "Listen, it's the government of God and it's also then God's ability to be sovereign over it all." And so the fourth one that he goes to is this, is then he says, "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 and righteousness by the man whom he has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising him from the dead." So the fourth thing is this, is we start to see the generosity of God. We start to see the generosity of God. We see that God out of his goodness, he came out of his greatness overseas, out of his sovereignty, governs it all, and then out of his generosity he gave. Out of his generosity, he gave the solution. He gave the solution to those aropicus that are searching for truth, that are trying to find something. If someone could just tell me truth, not about theory, but give me truth, I'm desperate to encounter a black and white, someone actually lives what they believe, truth. And Paul walks in and he says, "Here I proclaim to you." It's like what Martin Luther said, "Here I stand, I can do no other." It's truth. And so it's so missing in today's day and age, it's so missing an understanding of who he is and a proclamation of truth that will go through a theory that will go through a mindset and bring someone confused right back to mind. Be someone confused right back, "Oh, I can see my word, I can see." If someone just understood God's generous hand and God in his generous hand sent his son and not only set his son, but the generous hand that took him up the cross, took him up the hill to die on a cross and the generous hand that had him buried and then the generous hand that resurrected him and that everyone that would call upon the name Lord Jesus Christ would be saved, that every person that would come would receive his grace. And I believe that the Lord is taking us into a depth of understanding his generosity. How many of you have seen God's generosity at work in your life? I've heard more stories this week of people coming into classes and getting saved and people walking in in different arenas and there's so many amazing things that are happening in our midst. I don't want you to ever negate that fact. I had the joy of being back and forth with Aaron and Rhonda Barker and they're down in South Africa right now and they're completely trans...I mean, he was leading worship for all the different four locations of YWAM's last conference and so he's leading worship in four nations at one time that were simulcast through and we go, "That's our man that's out there doing that." You see, each one of you have heroics that you have done in the city. You see, part of God's sovereign hand in his governance hand is how he distributes gifts and how he hands out gifts and many of you are unsung heroes in this body. Many of you have a gift of ministry that you're out and you're pouring your life into serving others and serving people around. You see, God has been generous to us in the gifts. He's been generous to us in our personal lives. He's been generous to us and I believe that the Lord tonight laid on my heart the message is that we would understand that He is one that is great, He is good, He oversees the government but really that we would expand and understand how generous He really is. If you look at Matthew 7, I want to invite you to meditate and if you don't know how to meditate, I'll give you real great insight. Ready? Read it over and over and pray. You want to heighten awareness, turn some worship music on. That's wonderful, pray in tongues, pray in the spirit, pray always doesn't matter how you're praying if you're pacing but to meditate on the Word of God. I want you to meditate on this this week, Matthew 7, verse 11 says this, "If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him." Everybody, I want you to say the word abundance. God is a giver of good gifts. Do not forget, don't get so caught up here on, "Oh, I'm evil and I don't treat my kids right." Get beyond that. We're looking at God here. He is the giver of good gifts. He is the one of abundance. Now if I understand that He lives, He is an abundant God and that He loves to lavish gifts on me, then I will expect a lot from Him. If I think He's withholding and indifferent, then I will wonder kind of. Throughout the Word of God, the very principle that He sent His own son to die and across, that is abundance, folks. Nothing we deserve for that. There's nothing we deserve for the love that Jesus has for you and I right now, right now. There's nothing that we've deserved that has allowed us to be tools of His hand to preach the good news of what He's done. There's nothing we have done. He's generous. He is such a generous God. When we don't even feel like we deserve it, He gives it to us. We're going, "Come on. That's not fair. How come you? I didn't do anything for that, exactly." So we work so hard sometimes and then we go, "Oh, I'm so tired," and then it shows up. What's up with this, right? Many of you men have tried really hard to find a wife. Then you said that prayer, "Oh God. I give up. I'll be single the rest of my life," and boom, there she was. Like how in the world did that happen? You see, God is so generous that even when, in our mind, we have not met the credentials out of His grace and His love, He goes, "I love you so much." Here you go. Psalm 51 verse 12, Psalm 51 verse 12. How many of you believe that God is a generous God? How many of you have lived this week seeing Him as a generous God? How many of you would like to live this week with a greater impartation of His generosity? 51 verse 12 says this, "Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit." You see, the word "generous" is one that is overwhelming. It's overcoming. It's the same principle of abundance. It's like a cup that overflows. He's generous. He's generous in his pouring out of gifts. He's generous in his love. He's generous in how he moves and shapes things. He's a generous God. And this week I had a wonderful encounter with His generosity. And how many of you know we have been? We have fought tooth and nail in the spirit. We have been diligently searching on so many fronts for different buildings in the community to house us. We have had such a wonderful, we love this building in Pastor Ivory and their elders. We couldn't bless them more. I mean, they're just so amazing to allow us to gather here. But there's just been a real urgency in our spirit for the last, oh, number of weeks saying, "God, we must have a building. We must have a building." And I believe that God out of His generosity is starting to give us the first fruits. The first fruits of a new day for us. And part of his revealing things to me is he gives me things that I don't deserve or nor have ever thought I could handle. If you know what I mean. It could be that thing. It could be that relationship. It could be that house. It could be a tangible thing or it could be something in the spirit all at the same time that you go, "God, I really don't deserve this." You know how he just generously hands that? Well, I believe that the Lord has started to hand us things that we're walking into a day that he is opening new doors for us, that we're going to see his generous hand at work. You see, this week, the Parkland team had a door open for a building for them to meet in and cry out in. And if you've been hunting for a building, you know how hard this is to find. It's not easy. It's not easy. And so I want to share with you tonight that I believe that the Lord has opened us a new door for our Word and worship service. [BLANK_AUDIO]