Acts 17:16-31 on May 3rd, 2026
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
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How Should Christians Live in the Real World?
That's a big question, right? And through the years, different groups of Christians have responded differently to that question.
Three Approaches to Engaging with Culture
One way is to simply withdraw from the world. I got to see this firsthand while living in Pennsylvania. While we were up there, we lived near towns with very colorful names. In those towns, there were a lot of Amish. And while they had their smorgasbords and horse and buggy tours, they really are separated from society. There is a feeling that the world is too corrupt, so faithful Christians disengage from it.
There's also the opposite approach: the Culture War. This approach engages the world, but often in a confrontational or controlling kind of way. Think about not liking the Beatles because if you play a record backwards, it tells you some Satanic things. It's reactive, moralistic, and often misses deeper issues. The thought here is that the world is wrong, and it is our job to correct it.
Other groups simply blend Christianity into their civic identity, losing any sort of real distinctiveness between society and religion. God starts to want what I want. God always seems to be on our side, and not the side of the other, and our choices, no matter how ethically blurry, are backed fully by God. When that happens, faith gets wrapped up so tightly in culture that it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.
While I am painting with a broad brush here to summarize, some reject culture, some fight culture, and some try to mingle culture with religion in ways that make the two indistinguishable. But none of those fully capture what Paul is doing.
Paul's Model: A Different Way
Paul doesn't avoid the world in which he finds himself. He doesn't try to control it, nor does he blend into the background. Instead, he uses what he sees to point to and proclaim God's action. He steps into the world as it is and speaks a new reality into it.
Paul is in Athens, a city overflowing with idols. And as he's walking through it, he's deeply distressed by what he sees. Everywhere he looks, there are images, altars, and statues of devotion, and that pushes him into conversation. He goes to synagogue and marketplaces, talking with anyone who listens. Some hear him and dismiss him as a babbler. However, instead of ignoring or lambasting the people, he uses what is there as a springboard to communicate his own faith.
Paul notices an altar that he has seen dedicated to an unknown God. It was their catchall just in case they had missed something. It was built out of fear. What if there's a God we don't know about? Paul uses it and explains, yes, there is a God you don't know, and I'm going to tell you.
He speaks of a God who made the world and everything in it, a God who is not contained in temples made by human hands, a God who doesn't need anything from us, but is the one who gives life and breath to all people. In this God, he says, we live and move and have our being. This unknown God is no longer unknown, because this God has acted. God has fixed a day to judge the world in righteousness and has given assurance of this to all by raising Jesus from the dead.
Paul takes God beyond an image from the unknown squarely to the known. He points to the promise between God and the world seen through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Idolatry in Our Modern World
Our world, like theirs, is variously and sometimes stupidly religious. Anyone who thinks that idolatry is dead and contemporary culture has not been paying attention to what draws recognition, dedication, and trust. Prices, earnings, money, power, prestige, winning, control, influence, and law all command our devotion.
Paul shows us, teaches us something today. Paul models for us a way to engage with the culture around us—not withdraw from it, control it, or be absorbed by it. He gives us a way to live inside it. And that's easy to say, not easy to do. There is definitely challenge there. It is easy to be different. The challenge is to be different in a way full of resurrection promise.
Living Differently in a Divided World
Believe it or not, there are people who disagree about things in our world today. And with those disagreements, we also see a lot of anger and vitriol. It's easy to be angry and spew hate back. But as Paul shows us, the challenge is to be different in a way full of resurrection promise.
So maybe our difference is not to caricature others. Don't flatten people into enemies. We can describe people fairly even in disagreement. And these days, that type of stuff surely is different. Again, the challenge is to be different in a way full of promise.
Speaking Hope in the Face of Death
Our world often ignores death. It avoids it as much as possible. Death is the thing that we cannot control, can't fully understand, can't pretty up, no matter how hard we try. And yet we speak hope anyway. We as people of faith are open about death, mortality, and our brokenness. We speak resurrection even in the midst of real grief. We refuse to treat death as the final word because we have a Savior who has been there and come out the other side. And that is different than how the world reacts. The challenge is to be hopeful in a way full of promise.
Generosity and Abundance
Society looks to its own self. What it has, what it owns, what type of transactions can be made. More is more, and that is that. But we are different, and in that we know that God has given us all things. All creation is God's own. God gives life, gifts, talents, time, and possessions, so we don't have to hoard any of it. We can share it, build God's kingdom with it. Our worth doesn't come from what we're worth. We can be generous with what we have and who we are. And the challenge is to be generous in a way full of promise.
Radical Welcome
The world is full of those who are in and those who are out. Exclusive or not, here or there. You are special or you are not. But we are different in that we welcome others, especially those who aren't in yet. That is who we're called to be. We want to make room for others, for those who aren't included, for those who have been told that they don't belong. As our mission statement says, we want to expand God's table for all. We welcome others with true hospitality. And the challenge is to welcome in a way that is full of promise.
Being Different with Purpose
Being different is not the goal by itself. One can be different and still be bitter, still be anxious, still be closed off. The question is whether that difference is shaped by resurrection, by hope, by forgiveness, by grace. So we strive to be different in a way full of promise because we trust that God is still alive, still speaking, still at work.
It is a challenge sometimes to understand God's ways, but God keeps trying and God keeps coming. God is made known in and through the person of Jesus Christ. So we who are flesh and blood creatures look to a flesh and blood savior, one who has conquered sin and death, who is with us always, who promises to come again. He is not distant or abstract. God has become flesh for us.
And in those moments of the unknown, God gives us the promise of presence. In bread and wine and water and Word, God is there. God gives us life. God gives us grace. God gives us resurrection promise. All so we can live differently.
Amen.