Yesterday it was rainy all day so I did a bunch of indoor chores and just had a nice relaxing day. This week is Vacation Bible School for us so Pastor and I prepared for all of that this morning and I think we are ready to go. I would also like to get my "South Dakota" mounting board done this week so I can mount the antlers I got up here last fall. The fact that I only have one month left up here is becoming more and more real. I am going to be sad to go and am dreading the whole packing and moving thing again.
Here is my sermon from this last Sunday:
Vicar Richter preaching in White and Aurora
Sermon Text: Acts 17:16-31
Our text for this morning comes from the First reading of the day, from Acts chapter 17, looking specifically at verse 18: “Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities” because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.”
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
In our text for today Paul is in Athens, a city known for its schools of philosophy. I took two philosophy classes in college and loved how much both of them challenged my thinking abilities. I also loved learning the history of philosophy because these philosophers were simply trying to figure out the world around them. When something didn’t make sense to them or puzzled them, they spent all of their time trying to make sense out of it using their skills in logic. However, this also lead to a lot of heretical ideas because the answers they came up with were manmade, human ideas, human reasoning.
Paul encounters two different schools of philosophy that are specifically mentioned here in Acts. I think it is very important that Luke included what specific philosophers Paul is talking to here. You see both of these schools of philosophy held that pleasure was the highest good. The entire goal of life is to be in a state of pure pleasure. However, the two schools differed from each other and were actually quite against each other in how one could obtain this pleasure.
The Epicureans believed that pleasure could be obtained by lowering your expectations and standards. They taught that you have the ability to always be happy, always be in this pleasure. If you were unhappy it was because you expected something different than what you were experiencing and therefore it is your fault for expecting something better and that is why you are unhappy. So for an example, if you are unhappy with your job, it is not because your job is not a good job, it is because you let yourself think that there is a better job out there so you are unhappy with this one, if you lowered your expectations and standards to truly convince yourself that the job you have is the best job in the world, you will be happy with your job and be in this state of pleasure. They even took this as far as to say you should not feel pain. If you feel pain which causes you unhappiness, it is only because you believe you should feel better than you do, so again your expectations of how you should feel are higher than how you actually feel and this is what is causing you to be unhappy. According to the Epicureans, you can achieve pure pleasure by always lowering your expectations to be happy with what you are experiencing.
The Stoics believed that pleasure could be achieved but not by lowering your expectations. They believed your actions and how you lived your life are what gave you the ability to be in a state of pure pleasure. They believed that if you always made the right choice with every decision you made in life, you could obtain true pleasure. They taught that when bad things happen in your life, it was a sign of bad judgment made on your part. Somewhere earlier you had made the wrong choice and that is the reason you were experiencing pain or suffering now. And it is not just the major decisions in your life, but every action you made, every word you said was a decision and if it was the right one, you would be in pleasure, if it was the wrong one you would not be. It was how you lived your life and the choices you made that your happiness depended on.
So even though the Epicureans believed that you lowered your expectations to be happy in every situation and the Stoics believed you had to make the right choices to always be in a happy situation, they both still held pleasure as the highest good and the ultimate goal of life. They both also believed that every human being possessed the ability to obtain their own state of pleasure. You see the things that puzzled them that caused them to wrestle through these ideas were pain and suffering. This is what did not make sense to them, so they came up with manmade answers, human reasoning of how pain or suffering makes sense. The very idea that pleasure is the highest good in this life is human reasoning. This is where there manmade answers led them to heretical problems. They are entirely focused on our lives on this earth and what they can personally do about it, never once taking into account God, His action in this life, or His gift of life after this world.
So this is why when Paul is preaching about Jesus and the resurrection, they are entirely confused. Now as good philosophers who like to hear every possible option and think through things as completely as possible before dismissing them, they want to hear more of Paul’s teachings. So Paul has the chance to preach the Gospel message to them. However, for most of them they dismiss Paul’s teachings because they see the pleasure of this life as the highest good. They are only focused on the things of this life, not heavenly things as we might say, or the things of the afterlife. The entire purpose for their life is pleasure and they can do it on their own by either lowering their expectations or making better choices with their lives, so what do they need this Jesus for and so what if He rose from the dead.
You see we as good Christians know that we cannot obtain “pleasure” on our own. We know that the reason we experience pain and suffering is not because our expectations are too high or because we made a wrong choice, (although there are times that probably both of those might have some truth) but the reason we suffer and have pain is because we are sinners living in a sinful world. We can never obtain true state of pleasure because we on our own can never escape the effects of sin. We cannot do this on our own and that is the reason we need this Jesus who rose from the dead. We know the Gospel message, we know that Christ is risen, and we know that we have eternal life in His name. We have heard Paul’s sermon and did not dismissed it, but rather by the work of the Holy Spirit believed it and have been enlightened by it.
And yet, there are times where we let ourselves slowly become like these philosophers. There are times where we let ourselves focus solely on the things here in this world. We begin to concern ourselves with only the desires and the pleasures of the flesh. We set our hearts and minds of things here below. We stress about money instead of trusting God to always provide for us, we get angry and hold grudges against someone who hurts our pride instead of forgiving, we think have to have a bigger house or a nicer car to be truly happy because the small outdated house just will not do or that old rust box is just too embarrassing to drive. We spend our money on golf clubs, guns, fishing gear, shoes, purses, clothes, bigger T.V.’s, and other things that give us happiness and pleasure in this life. We let ourselves find happiness in people giving us compliments, in our relationships with others, or our ability to be better than other people in certain ways.
Now I am not trying to say that being happy is wrong, or that having pleasure in your life is wrong, but to think that that happiness or pleasure comes from anything other than God Himself is a sin. To think that you deserve to be happier, putting yourself ahead of everyone else, putting your own happiness ahead of everything else in this life is a sin. Or trying to find that happiness in ways that are not pleasing to the Lord such as at the bottom of a bottle, or putting others down to build yourself up, or skipping church to go be where you are truly happiest, this is sin. You see it is not a sin to be happy, but to think that you can or that you do obtain your own happiness or to obtain that happiness in a sinful way is a sin. The only reason we have any happiness in our lives at all is because our merciful God gives us the gifts to have pleasure in our life. Pleasure is not a sin, making our own person pleasure most important or letting that pleasure set our minds on things below instead of heavenly things is what leads us into sin.
We even let ourselves get so focused on things here below and this life that I think we are all guilty of taking the resurrection of our Lord for granted. Yes, we do believe Christ rose from the dead, and we acknowledge that we too will rise from the dead on that final day. Our bodies will be resurrected and reunited with our souls to spend eternity in Christ’s presence; however, do we hold that as the highest good in our lives. Do we realize how amazing that gift from our Lord truly is, do we realize how great and important that Gospel message is for us sinners? Maybe at a funeral we might stop to remember that we do have hope in the resurrection of all flesh on that last triumphant day, but on the day to day basis I am willing to bet we all even as Christians take that Gospel message for granted and do not set our minds on that good news.
We too need to hear Paul’s sermon reminding us that there are not several gods, but one true God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the one true Triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who created the world we lived in, knit us together in the womb before we were born, claimed us as His own placing His name on us in our baptism, washing away our original sin, making us holy and righteous in His sight. This one true God sent His Son to be our Savior by dying on the cross to pay for all of our sins and then if that were not enough raised Him from the dead, the first fruits of the resurrected, to give us all our hope and joy in the life we have in His name. Our Savior who was willing to die to pay for all of our sins that we committee, including the ones of being self focused, desiring our own pleasure in this life, rose from the dead, glorified in the flesh. This is what Paul preached in Athens and it is still the message we preach to this day. But unlike the philosophers who thought their human reasoning was what would lead them to the highest good of pleasure on this earth, we know the truth, the truth that our highest good is to be with our God in His presence. He has given us that gift already by being with us here is this life, but continues through His grace and mercy to give us that gift in the life we have after death. Our God who forgives us of all our sins for the sake of His Son our Savior, allows us to dwell in His presence first in heaven, but then on that Final Day, just as He raised His Son from death back to life, glorified in the flesh, He will raise us too reuniting our souls and our bodies to spend the rest of eternity in His presence in the new heaven and new earth. We know that this Jesus and His resurrection that Paul preaches does matter, because we who have been called into the faith know our highest good is setting our minds on things above not on things on this earth. So we do proudly proclaim that Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, alleluia! Knowing that we too will be raised into eternal life where we will spend the rest of eternity in the presence of our Lord and this is truly the highest good.
Our text for this morning comes from the First reading of the day, from Acts chapter 17, looking specifically at verse 18: “Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities” because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.”
Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
In our text for today Paul is in Athens, a city known for its schools of philosophy. I took two philosophy classes in college and loved how much both of them challenged my thinking abilities. I also loved learning the history of philosophy because these philosophers were simply trying to figure out the world around them. When something didn’t make sense to them or puzzled them, they spent all of their time trying to make sense out of it using their skills in logic. However, this also lead to a lot of heretical ideas because the answers they came up with were manmade, human ideas, human reasoning.
Paul encounters two different schools of philosophy that are specifically mentioned here in Acts. I think it is very important that Luke included what specific philosophers Paul is talking to here. You see both of these schools of philosophy held that pleasure was the highest good. The entire goal of life is to be in a state of pure pleasure. However, the two schools differed from each other and were actually quite against each other in how one could obtain this pleasure.
The Epicureans believed that pleasure could be obtained by lowering your expectations and standards. They taught that you have the ability to always be happy, always be in this pleasure. If you were unhappy it was because you expected something different than what you were experiencing and therefore it is your fault for expecting something better and that is why you are unhappy. So for an example, if you are unhappy with your job, it is not because your job is not a good job, it is because you let yourself think that there is a better job out there so you are unhappy with this one, if you lowered your expectations and standards to truly convince yourself that the job you have is the best job in the world, you will be happy with your job and be in this state of pleasure. They even took this as far as to say you should not feel pain. If you feel pain which causes you unhappiness, it is only because you believe you should feel better than you do, so again your expectations of how you should feel are higher than how you actually feel and this is what is causing you to be unhappy. According to the Epicureans, you can achieve pure pleasure by always lowering your expectations to be happy with what you are experiencing.
The Stoics believed that pleasure could be achieved but not by lowering your expectations. They believed your actions and how you lived your life are what gave you the ability to be in a state of pure pleasure. They believed that if you always made the right choice with every decision you made in life, you could obtain true pleasure. They taught that when bad things happen in your life, it was a sign of bad judgment made on your part. Somewhere earlier you had made the wrong choice and that is the reason you were experiencing pain or suffering now. And it is not just the major decisions in your life, but every action you made, every word you said was a decision and if it was the right one, you would be in pleasure, if it was the wrong one you would not be. It was how you lived your life and the choices you made that your happiness depended on.
So even though the Epicureans believed that you lowered your expectations to be happy in every situation and the Stoics believed you had to make the right choices to always be in a happy situation, they both still held pleasure as the highest good and the ultimate goal of life. They both also believed that every human being possessed the ability to obtain their own state of pleasure. You see the things that puzzled them that caused them to wrestle through these ideas were pain and suffering. This is what did not make sense to them, so they came up with manmade answers, human reasoning of how pain or suffering makes sense. The very idea that pleasure is the highest good in this life is human reasoning. This is where there manmade answers led them to heretical problems. They are entirely focused on our lives on this earth and what they can personally do about it, never once taking into account God, His action in this life, or His gift of life after this world.
So this is why when Paul is preaching about Jesus and the resurrection, they are entirely confused. Now as good philosophers who like to hear every possible option and think through things as completely as possible before dismissing them, they want to hear more of Paul’s teachings. So Paul has the chance to preach the Gospel message to them. However, for most of them they dismiss Paul’s teachings because they see the pleasure of this life as the highest good. They are only focused on the things of this life, not heavenly things as we might say, or the things of the afterlife. The entire purpose for their life is pleasure and they can do it on their own by either lowering their expectations or making better choices with their lives, so what do they need this Jesus for and so what if He rose from the dead.
You see we as good Christians know that we cannot obtain “pleasure” on our own. We know that the reason we experience pain and suffering is not because our expectations are too high or because we made a wrong choice, (although there are times that probably both of those might have some truth) but the reason we suffer and have pain is because we are sinners living in a sinful world. We can never obtain true state of pleasure because we on our own can never escape the effects of sin. We cannot do this on our own and that is the reason we need this Jesus who rose from the dead. We know the Gospel message, we know that Christ is risen, and we know that we have eternal life in His name. We have heard Paul’s sermon and did not dismissed it, but rather by the work of the Holy Spirit believed it and have been enlightened by it.
And yet, there are times where we let ourselves slowly become like these philosophers. There are times where we let ourselves focus solely on the things here in this world. We begin to concern ourselves with only the desires and the pleasures of the flesh. We set our hearts and minds of things here below. We stress about money instead of trusting God to always provide for us, we get angry and hold grudges against someone who hurts our pride instead of forgiving, we think have to have a bigger house or a nicer car to be truly happy because the small outdated house just will not do or that old rust box is just too embarrassing to drive. We spend our money on golf clubs, guns, fishing gear, shoes, purses, clothes, bigger T.V.’s, and other things that give us happiness and pleasure in this life. We let ourselves find happiness in people giving us compliments, in our relationships with others, or our ability to be better than other people in certain ways.
Now I am not trying to say that being happy is wrong, or that having pleasure in your life is wrong, but to think that that happiness or pleasure comes from anything other than God Himself is a sin. To think that you deserve to be happier, putting yourself ahead of everyone else, putting your own happiness ahead of everything else in this life is a sin. Or trying to find that happiness in ways that are not pleasing to the Lord such as at the bottom of a bottle, or putting others down to build yourself up, or skipping church to go be where you are truly happiest, this is sin. You see it is not a sin to be happy, but to think that you can or that you do obtain your own happiness or to obtain that happiness in a sinful way is a sin. The only reason we have any happiness in our lives at all is because our merciful God gives us the gifts to have pleasure in our life. Pleasure is not a sin, making our own person pleasure most important or letting that pleasure set our minds on things below instead of heavenly things is what leads us into sin.
We even let ourselves get so focused on things here below and this life that I think we are all guilty of taking the resurrection of our Lord for granted. Yes, we do believe Christ rose from the dead, and we acknowledge that we too will rise from the dead on that final day. Our bodies will be resurrected and reunited with our souls to spend eternity in Christ’s presence; however, do we hold that as the highest good in our lives. Do we realize how amazing that gift from our Lord truly is, do we realize how great and important that Gospel message is for us sinners? Maybe at a funeral we might stop to remember that we do have hope in the resurrection of all flesh on that last triumphant day, but on the day to day basis I am willing to bet we all even as Christians take that Gospel message for granted and do not set our minds on that good news.
We too need to hear Paul’s sermon reminding us that there are not several gods, but one true God, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the one true Triune God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who created the world we lived in, knit us together in the womb before we were born, claimed us as His own placing His name on us in our baptism, washing away our original sin, making us holy and righteous in His sight. This one true God sent His Son to be our Savior by dying on the cross to pay for all of our sins and then if that were not enough raised Him from the dead, the first fruits of the resurrected, to give us all our hope and joy in the life we have in His name. Our Savior who was willing to die to pay for all of our sins that we committee, including the ones of being self focused, desiring our own pleasure in this life, rose from the dead, glorified in the flesh. This is what Paul preached in Athens and it is still the message we preach to this day. But unlike the philosophers who thought their human reasoning was what would lead them to the highest good of pleasure on this earth, we know the truth, the truth that our highest good is to be with our God in His presence. He has given us that gift already by being with us here is this life, but continues through His grace and mercy to give us that gift in the life we have after death. Our God who forgives us of all our sins for the sake of His Son our Savior, allows us to dwell in His presence first in heaven, but then on that Final Day, just as He raised His Son from death back to life, glorified in the flesh, He will raise us too reuniting our souls and our bodies to spend the rest of eternity in His presence in the new heaven and new earth. We know that this Jesus and His resurrection that Paul preaches does matter, because we who have been called into the faith know our highest good is setting our minds on things above not on things on this earth. So we do proudly proclaim that Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, alleluia! Knowing that we too will be raised into eternal life where we will spend the rest of eternity in the presence of our Lord and this is truly the highest good.
In the name of our Risen and living Lord, who is our hope and joy that we too will be raised, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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