TAKE GROUND IN THE WEST VALLEY
Take Ground Series: Take ground is a sermon series about entering the spiritual war of our day and advancing into enemy occupied territory to set captives free with the Gospel and build God’s Kingdom.
To advance the mission, we believe we need a permanent ministry headquarters in the West Valley—starting with purchasing 8.5 acres just east of the 303 and raising $3M over the next three years. We are a church where everyone sacrifices for the mission of taking Kingdom ground; and at the end of service, those ready can drop their commitment cards in the baskets.
“Take Ground In the West Valley”
Acts 17 CONTEXT
Acts 17 drops you into a collision between the gospel and the smartest culture on earth. Paul moves from Thessalonica to Berea and then into Athens—an intellectually elite city filled with philosophy, idols, and endless opinions. Athens is basically the ancient world’s university campus and social media feed combined: people love ideas, debate, and “new” perspectives, but they’re spiritually empty. Paul walks through the city and is provoked by how religious they are, yet how blind they remain, so he does what missionaries and pastors have always had to do—he learns the culture, speaks their language, and then confronts their false gods with the true God. And when he stands in the Areopagus, he’s not preaching to church people—he’s preaching to skeptics, intellectuals, and spiritual-but-not-religious types, showing that Jesus isn’t just another option to consider, but the risen King every person must respond to.
In this passage, we get a pure picture of what it looks like to intentionally enter and attempt to reach a region.
I want us to ask a question: how do we take ground in the West Valley? We’ll look at Paul’s strategy in this passage.
01. Confront
02. Converse
03. Contextualize
Acts 17:16
[16] Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.
Hill = Acropolis (high city)
Temple = Parthenon
Panathenaic Way in the Ancient Agora of Athens.
While Paul was waiting intent was not originally to preach in Athens. Athens was basically a layover city for him.
But while he’s waiting, he can’t not preach.
provoked
Paul was burdened by the brokenness.
παρωξύνετο “provoked” irritable (1 Cor 13:5)
Idols
Petronius: It was easier to find a god in Athens than a man.
This is where we get our first idea:
01. CONFRONT
If we are ever going to make an impact in the West Valley we’re going to need to confront the existing idols.
Jeremiah 2:13. For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
In the ancient world, a cistern was a man-made water tank—usually carved into rock—to collect rainwater.
They built their own replacement gods
“…and hewed out cisterns for themselves…”
That’s the default human instinct: If I don’t want God, I’ll create my own system or my own satisfaction. But when you drink deeply of it in place of God it never satisfies.
Money
sex
comfort
Success
Power
Approval
religion without God
entertainment
control
It’s self-made salvation. Self-made meaning. It doesn’t satisfy.
IMPORTANT→ Most idols aren’t bad things, they are GOOD things that we chase instead of GOD.
People in the west valley are chasing these things.
PEOPLE MOVE HERE IN SEARCH OF A BETTER HOME
3 KEY LONGINGS HERE:
01. Purpose
02. Community
03. Raising whole and healthy kids.
We started this church because those things are good things but even if you do get them but make the ultimate things it will drain your soul. And without God you won’t approach these areas properly.
He takes to the streets
Acts 17:17-21 [17] So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. [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. [19] And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? [20] For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.” [21] Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.
Marketplace the agora
Paul entered the marketplace of ideas to contend for the Gospel
Today this may be TikTok, Youtube, Instagram–people are always looking for new ideas. Conspiracy theories, political causes, and even spirituality all emerge now from the marketplace of ideas. The comments section is one of the few places in society where people who disagree still have the ability to interact and debate. The trouble is it attracts the words kinds of human beings.
This can also be the breakroom at work, the nail salon, the barbershop, the University, the coffee shop.
Compared to 50–100 years ago, in-person idea exchange has decreased dramatically.
I would argue human to human even online interaction is decreasing as interaction with ai becomes more common.
Hardly anyone interacts with people who disagree with them in person anymore. We’re become more polarized, more offended and offendable, less persuasive and prepared for normal idea exchange and instead more dogmatic and unthinking.
02. CONVERSE
FIGHT TO THE FRINGES
The hair cutter said “Yes it’s spiritual”. I didn’t get to finish before conversation because I don’t have very much hair. But at least I began to learn what narratives she is brought into so that the dialogue is open to spiritual ideas and eventually the gospel.
We want to, like Paul, enter the spiritual dialogue of the West Valley.
We should be praying for OPEN DOORS.
Colossians 4:3. “At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ…”
Paul gets one:
[19] And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?
It’s gaining traction and they wanted to hear.
Part of why we’re buying a building is that The Gospel is gaining traction here in the West Valley.
We believe the Gospel STILL works! And we want the whole West Valley to HAVE to deal with the claims of Jesus.
Paul Addresses the Areopagus
[22] So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. [23] For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
Paul noticed Athens even had an altar labeled “TO THE UNKNOWN GOD”—a catch-all deity in case they had overlooked someone in their massive pantheon. The city was filled with these altars, dating back to a plague 600 years earlier when Epimenides released sheep through Athens and sacrificed them wherever they lay down; if no temple was nearby, the sacrifice was made to the unknown god. Paul uses that altar as his opening to reveal the true identity of the God they worshiped without knowing.
An altar—possibly dedicated to an unspecified god or goddess—was unearthed in 1820 on the Palatine Hill in Rome. It bears this Latin inscription:
SEI·DEO·SEI·DEIVAE·SAC
G·SEXTIVS·C·F·CALVINVSPR
DE·SENATI·SENTENTIA
RESTITVIT
Translated:
“Whether sacred to god or to goddess, Gaius Sextius Calvinus, son of Gaius, praetor, restored this on a vote of the senate.”
In other words, even Rome covered their theological bases—just in case. The altar is now displayed in the Palatine Museum.
03. CONTEXTUALIZE
Timothy Keller
Contextualization is adapting biblical truth to the language, culture, and sensibilities of the audience without compromising the truth in any way so that the Gospel is as compelling and as understandable as possible. Conextualization is not giving people what they want to hear, it is giving people God’s answers which they may not want to hear in language and in forms that they will find most understandable and perhaps most convincing.
Paul now, being a sophisticated missionary, brilliantly turns this into an opportunity to reveal the God of the Bible. He’s essentially saying, “You admit there is a God you don’t know about. You are correct. Let me introduce you to Him.
Acts 17:24-30 [24] The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, [25] nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. [26] And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
[27] that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, [28] for
“‘In him we live and move and have our being’;
as even some of your own poets have said,
“‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
He is quoting and citing their own poets and authors. Epimenides (6th C BC), poem “For we are indeed his offspring” Aratus (3rd C BC), from his poem Phaenomena. So Paul combines two pagan Greek poets back to back to establish common ground before confronting their idolatry.
[29] Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. [30] The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, [31] because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”
He again confronts the idols as incapable of saving.
He concludes by presenting the Gospel. If you haven’t heard the Gospel:
THE GOSPEL
Our only hope for being made righteous after living sinfully is the death and resurrection of Jesus. If you have not believed, believe and put your gaith in Him! Be made righteous by the One who is risen!
How did the respond? How should we?
[32] Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.” [33] So Paul went out from their midst. [34] But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.
Our job is not to produce the response but to provide the Gospel winsomely
01. Some mocked. Last week a family left because they said essentially they couldn’t trust a setup church. I didn’t argue with them. Why? Because in some ways I agree with them!
Part of why we’re establishing a building is because thousands of people will never hear the Gospel in a school.
02. “We will hear you again about this.” We’re going to hear a story in a moment
03. Some men joined him and believed… Giving to Take Ground
Which One are you?
VIDEO → PASS THE BUCKETS
Stories like this are why we’re doing what we’re doing this as a church.