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Lessons and Sermons from the Longmire Road church of Christ in Conroe Texas USA
Good afternoon.
If you are in any shape like I am, you've eaten.
Yeah.
And I ate as I would say from time to time a bit hound dogishly.
So so much so I asked Sister Jackson to drive us here.
So we are w we're thankful for the opportunity to uh proclaim a portion of God's word yet
again.
Uh I don't take this uh opportunity lightly.
It is a privilege, not a right, and we are uh mindful that it is a privilege that God has
afforded us to help those along life's journey.
As we uh get ready to uh go into the lesson, I I must say that it's been a a pleasure over
the last couple of weeks to be here.
Uh I have enjoyed the fellowship, I have enjoyed the encouragement, um the discussions
that we've had along the way, and I appreciate the way that you have treated uh myself and
my family.
Um so as you turn your Bibles to the book of Acts, chapter sixteen.
And while you're hopefully turning your Bibles, I I notice as I travel around um the
country uh preaching the gospel and for other reasons as well, I notice that the Bible has
become uh a bit antiquated uh for some congregations.
And so uh while technology is good, there's nothing like a a copy of God's word and hard
copy.
Um I believe Bibles need to be read, not in color, but in
In substance.
And so we're we're thankful for that.
Uh appreciate Brother Mac and Patty making their way over.
Uh we've gotten to know them uh ever so briefly.
Uh we appreciate them taking the time to be over here on this evening.
Acts chapter 17.
We'll read verses 24 through verse number 28 as the foundation for the lesson on this
evening, and it's my prayer that we'll gain some insight uh from the study.
Acts seventeen verses twenty four through verse number twenty eight.
God that made the world and all things therein seeeth that he is Lord of heaven and earth,
dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
Neither is worship with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all
life and breath and all things.
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth,
and hath determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation.
That they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he
be not far from every one of us.
For in him we live and move and have our being, as certain also of your own poets have
said, for we are also his offspring.
wanna challenge us.
This is um an encouraging setting this evening to see uh those of us that have chosen to
make the time back on this evening.
It's encouraging and it feels more like a Bible study setting than a worship setting,
although we are here for the express purpose of worship.
The lesson this evening is going to be subjected or subject titled, if you will, The
Sustainer Who Needs No Human Hand Therapy.
The Sustainer Who Needs No Human Hand Therapy.
For those that are students of the book, we know that both the book of Luke.
And the book of Acts is written by the same person to the same person.
In Luke chapter 1, we find that Luke is writing to a man by the name of Theophilus.
Volume 2, if you will, is the book of Acts.
He's writing from the point that he picks up at when Jesus ascends to glory.
He picks up in the book of Acts at that point and continues going forward.
It's interesting to note that as we read through the Book of Acts, there is a number of
accounts of significance, many of which we all of which we don't have time to get into,
but this one is particularly interesting because we find ourselves in Athens, Greece.
Athens is to this day one of the most popular uh visiting destinations for those vacating
in Europe.
And one of the uniquenesses is that it has a great deal of its ruins from uh mythological
uh gods and so forth still in existence.
The location that we find ourselves in, if you read earlier in the text, is a place called
Mars Hill.
Mars Hill is in a location called the Acropolis, or just below the Acropolis, about 140
feet below the ruins of the Acropolis.
Which is also referred to as the Arragapus.
It is commonly believed that this location is where many notable figures of political
substance would gather to discuss matters of importance.
The Athenians, however, were very interesting because they had a god for this and a god
for that.
Much like old McDonald's farm, here a god, there a god, everywhere a god god.
Uh the god of mercy, false gods they are, the god of shame, the god of rumor, and the god
of energy all were part of that setting.
I find it interesting that he mentions that even one of their own poets had written about
their escapades as Athenians.
His name was Erastus.
And Erastus wrote a work called Ta Phenomena, which means him to Zeus.
And in that he writes that the Epicureans and the Stoics are interested in nothing more
than self-mastery and self-indulgence.
We find of that group that is referred to as self-existing, self-sufficient, and
self-sustaining, at least.
They seem to think they are.
It's rather unfortunate that in our day and age today there are many that are that way.
And the only reason, I should say, one of the reasons why I've chosen to walk down this
path with us this evening is that I'm a bit encouraged.
I'm encouraged because as I travel throughout this brotherhood of ours, as I go literally
from coast to coast and even other parts of the world.
I find that many congregations have lost their way.
I'm encouraged tonight because I don't find that to be the case here.
And so this lesson is intended to encourage us but also to enlighten us along the way.
The Apostle Paul, as he talks to this group group of Athenians, oh he informs them that he
had come across a location.
Um, where it was an altar to the unknown God, whom they, as he said, ignorantly worship.
Him I declare unto you.
So, one of the things that we were going to find is that Paul identifies uh the God of
whom they are worshiping, and we too can learn some tremendous lessons from how the
Apostle Paul addresses this issue of how to worship the God whom many
To this day, ignorantly worship.
As an excursion, as I mentioned on last week, I had a Bible study online yesterday with a
family member of ours that is located in Phoenix, Arizona.
And as we were walking through the Bible study online uh through a Zoom type setting, he
asked me a very direct question, and I said to him, I'm going to give you a very direct
answer, but you have to have your Bible available to you.
I'm taking off my family hat for a moment and I'm putting on my preacher hat to help you
along the way.
And one of the questions he asked was, Am I doing worship the right way?
And so we walk through that at length.
He also asked me, Have I been saved properly?
What do you ask me for?
You ask me a question, I'm gonna give you an answer because it's found in the Bible.
But I say that to say that many people are not getting.
Straight truth.
And it's our responsibility to address it the right way.
And one of the reasons why people have such difficulty is that they don't understand the
God that they worship.
Listen to what Paul says in verse number 24.
He says, God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven
and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
Paul, what are you getting at?
You need to understand the God that you are worshiping.
You're ignorantly worshiping someone that you don't really know.
So Paul launches into a dialogue to help them understand the God that they are worshiping,
or at least attempting to.
This God is not like Zeus or Poseidon or any of those other false gods.
This God is the God of gods.
He is the only true God.
This God that they are ignorantly worshiping is the God that made the worlds.
This God, though He that He is exclaiming, is the God of heaven and earth.
He is the one that has created all things, and He dwelleth not in temples made with hands.
Now remember the lesson title, which we will get to here momentarily.
The Sustainer Who Needs No Human Hand Therapy.
What we're going to speak to is that.
Oftentimes we have a tendency to put our hands where they don't belong.
Amen.
And so what we're going to find is that Paul is going to address this in such detail, it's
going to be a bit mind-boggling here shortly.
Stephen makes this point clear in st in Acts chapter 7, in verse numbers 47 through verse
number 50.
In verse number 49, specifically, we see these words: Heaven is my throne as he
Quotes from the Old Testament, and earth is my footstool, what house will ye build me,
saith the Lord, or what is the place of my rest?
God is saying, you can't build something big enough, substantial enough, opulent enough to
draw me in and keep me there.
No matter how majestic, how magnificent, no matter how opulent, impressive, or well
intended, it cannot contain the God of glory.
So here we are.
Listen to what David says in Psalms 39 139, verse number seven through verse number
twelve.
It's a powerful text.
Whether shall I go from thy spirit, or whether shall I flee from thy presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there.
If I make my bed in hell or sheol, behold, thou art there.
If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in
In the uttermost parts of the sea.
Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.
The Bible goes on to say, if I say, Surely, darkness shall cover me, even the night shall
be light about me.
Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day.
The dark and the light are both alike to thee.
What are you saying, David?
I can go from east to west, I'm not getting away.
Up, down, here, there, listen, we understand that he's omnipresent, he's omniscient, and
so on.
He is here and there at the same time, up and down at the same time.
Amen.
He's everywhere.
We need to understand the God that it is that we serve.
And he is the God that has created all things.
Let's go back to our text in Acts chapter 17 and verse number 25, and we'll spend the bulk
of our time here going forward.
One of the challenges that I see as I walk through this brotherhood, I was worshiping uh
in Australia a few weeks ago, and at the Belmore Road Church of Christ, a wonderful
congregation, very, very diverse, um, in terms of people, um, of ethnicity of ethnic
differences, Chinese, Japanese, um Australians, New Zealanders, or as they call
themselves, Kiwis.
uh Africans, all of those in the same kind.
It was a wonderful congregation, and I enjoy going to that particular congregation.
Very sound congregation.
I just happened to to try to find when I was there uh over the weekend worshiping.
But one of the things that stood out is that they are adamant about doing the right thing
the right way, even some twenty-five thousand miles away from here.
We must understand not only who God is, but his power.
God's power.
Look at verse 25 and 26.
Neither is worship with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all
life and breath and all things.
And as made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth.
And have determined the times before appointed and the bounds of their habitation.
Paul, what are you saying?
The God that we're talking about, that I'm talking about, is the God that has given life
and everything breath, life, and all things.
And He has brought each of us from the same source of one blood.
It's interesting to note that
When one chooses to do a study on DNA, and they want to trace our DNA strand back to its
origin, all of our strands, without exception, no matter what continent you've you you
dwell on, no matter what shade we have, we all go back to the same location, and it's the
location that the Bible refers to between four specific rivers of the ancient past.
The Gihan, the Peon, the Hitokil, and the Euphrates River, which is in North Africa.
It's interesting to note that God has made it clear that we all come from the same place.
And the DNA even substantiates that.
When we speak to the power of God, we're speaking to the fact that He gives life and
breath in all things.
His power is of one blood.
And the interesting thing that he goes on to say is that.
He is the one that has appointed the bounds and their habitation, the times and the bounds
of their habitation.
God is the one that defines time, not us.
He's given all of us the same time.
24 hours, seven days a week.
Now, interestingly enough, and I say this without without any malice at all, he's given
all of us the same amount of time to do what he wants done first, and then everything else
comes.
But we've got our hands in that time, and we've taken liberty with that time and chosen to
do what we want to do first and put God on the back burner.
Paul makes it clear that he's the creator of time and not us.
He's the one that has made us, yes, but he's the one that's also defined the bounds of the
habitation and the seasons.
Everything that is going on is a function of God's doing.
And if that's not enough, Jeremiah chapter 1 and verse number 5, we hear these words.
Before I form thee, God says to Jeremiah.
In the belly I knew thee.
And before thou cameest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a
prophet unto the nations.
God knows who you are before your parents do.
And that's something to take into serious consideration.
And as we walk through this to its conclusion, look at verse number twenty-five.
Again, we'll spend the rest of our time here this evening and the lesson will be yours.
Neither is worship with men's hands as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth life or
giveth to all life and breath and all things.
Let's do a little bit of Bible study tonight as a part of this lesson.
And there are three words here that we're going to investigate in more detail.
The first of those is the word worshiped.
The second is men's or the phrase men's hands.
These three words are significant in Paul's argument.
First of all, the word men's is the word anthropos, which is a reference to humanity.
It's not a reference to men or the male gender.
That's the word enur.
This word is a reference to all of humanity.
He is not worshiped with humanity's hands.
By coupling the word hands to the word men's, it's a Hebraic phrase or an idiom.
Which simply means that it is a reference to something greater than that general
statement.
It suggests that there is a gap that needs fixing.
It suggests that there is a chasm or a vacancy or a gulf.
That's what the phrase is indicating.
It is indicating something is hollow or something is missing that needs work.
And what Paul is saying is that what God has done.
Does not need work.
Y'all ain't getting it yet.
So th this the this phrase speaks to the fact that there is something that is missing that
we can't fix, but we think we can.
The next word, which is terribly significant, is the word for worship.
Our typical word for worship is the word proscuneo.
And that's what we're doing right now.
Proscuon, and it is a
Reference to the fact that we are bowing before the Almighty.
Then there's another word that we see in Romans chapter 12 and verse number one, where the
Bible says, Um, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable looking to God, which is a reasonable service.
Some translations translate that word service to worship.
The word there is the word latrua, and it means literally service.
It's not proscaneo, which is what we are doing in the assembly.
It is a service to God.
That's not this word either.
It's not proscenaeal, nor is it Letrua.
This word is the word therapuon, and therapuon is where we get the word therapy from.
So what Paul is saying is that God's what God has done doesn't need our hands on it such a
way that we think we can fix something that ain't broke.
That's what he's suggesting to us.
Suggesting to them what God has done is perfect in and of itself, and it doesn't need our
measly meddling with in any capacity.
That's why I'm so encouraged by God's people that are maintaining the worship setting uh
of the church, the structural setting of the Lord's church, the governmental manners of
the church, the doctrine of the church.
It needs no meddling.
And we don't have the wherewithal or the intellect to fix it if we could.
But we're not done because then there is another component to this.
There's the words, but then there's how he uses them.
Are y'all still here?
There's how he uses them, and I I know y'all are familiar with using uh grammar and Greek
and those kind of things.
I'm not gonna get into the words any further, but I'm gonna speak to how he uses these
words.
This phrase is in the present tense.
Indicative mood, passive voice.
Present tense, indicative mood, passive voice.
What is present tense, Brother Jackson?
It speaks to a contemporary action or something that is continually occurring at the time.
That's present tense.
As opposed to past tense being something that has already occurred versus future tense,
which is something to have yet occurred, and then the Bible refers to as perfect present
tense.
Which is something that has happened and continues to happen.
Present tense is the tense of right now.
That's the first thing.
So right now, God doesn't need our hands on nothing.
That wasn't good English.
I know you got the point.
uh Indicative mood makes an assertion of fact.
The fact is, right now, God doesn't need our help.
That's the second piece of this.
The third piece is passive voice.
Which represents the subject being receiving of the action.
Who's the subject?
The subject is God.
God is not worshiped with man's hands.
So God is not in necessity.
He's not in a passive role where he needs us to do anything.
The point is, is that we don't really have the wherewithal.
To make the changes that we think are appropriate that God says is off limits.
He does not need our help.
When he specified what he wanted the way he wanted it, that is sufficient in and of
itself.
Listen, listen, listen.
When God tells us what to do, how to do it, when to do it, why we do it, it is an
exclusionary command.
What that simply means is that we don't have the latitude to do anything else but that.
It excludes anything else.
And the apostle Paul's point is you're ignorantly worshiping the God of heaven, and the
reason you don't worship him the way you should is because number one, you don't know who
he is.
Number two, you don't know how powerful he is.
And number three, you don't realize he don't need our help.
That's the essence of what he just said.
So the next time we try to come up with some uh, as my mama used to say, some highfalutin
thing.
Uh huh.
the next time we try to come up with something ingenious, take it back to the book,
because the book is gonna give us everything that we need.
And we ought to be thankful for the book divine, the Bible, God's inspired word, which is
profitable for doctrine, for correction, for instruction, for reproof and righteousness,
and so on.
Why?
Because God has given us what he wants us to know, he's given us what he wants us to do,
and it's our responsibility to do it just like he said, the way he said it.
If one wants to be saved, that too must be done the way he says do it.
There's no deviation, there's no manipulation, we just do it like God says do, and we'll
be the better for it.
It's clear when Jesus, in Mark's account, was meeting with those publicans and sinners.
The Pharisees were
Complaining about the fact that he was eating with these publicans and sinners.
And Jesus said, They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
Sin is the sickness of the soul.
And the only way it can be resolved is as God has specified.
Imagine, if you will,
Imagine, if you will, that there was a disease such as the pandemic.
And this pandemic, the most recent one, is not the most severe that has ever existed.
Bubonic plague, Black Death, the cholera epidemic of the ancient past.
In one year, one pandemic killed fifty million people in one year.
20 million from the Black Death.
This pandemic that we just recently experienced pales by comparison to those of the
ancient past.
But imagine that we have a pandemic and there's but one cure and but one doctor.
We would do anything that we could possibly do to get to that doctor, no matter where that
doctor was located.
If he's got the cure.
And he's the only one with it.
We're gonna do what we can do to get to that doctor.
Can I hear an amen?
That be the case, Jesus is that doctor who's never lost a case.
And if we want to be cured from the sickness of the soul, which is sin, I call it the
cancer of the soul.
And if it goes unaddressed, it will continue to metastasize to the point where it will
kill us because the wages of sin is death.
And we've all got the problem.
That's what Romans 3 23 says.
Indicates.
So there may be somebody here tonight, this afternoon, that stands in need of their
sickness being resolved.
There's only but one doctor, his name is Jesus.
And he's given us his prescription.
And it's very clear and concise.
If we try to take the prescription in a manner other than how he's prescribed it, it will
not have the intended effect.
I must hear the gospel.
By way of the word of God, I must hear about Jesus and Him crucified, not just Him
crucified.
Let's not minimize the magnitude of His crucifixion.
His horrendous treatment, his brutal crucifixion is much more than we oftentimes
reference.
It's brutal.
Horrendous, horrific.
It is unimaginable what Jesus went through for you and I.
That's what we should be hearing.
The gospel, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 4.
His death on the cross for our sins, his burial, and his resurrection.
That's what we need to hear.
Social issues don't matter.
Political issues don't matter.
What matters is what He did for us to save us from ourselves.
That's what I must hear.
That's what I must believe.
I must believe that according to His eternal word, based on Romans 10, verses 9 and 10,
Hebrews 11 and verse number 6, I must repent of my past sins.
I must be willing to make the change as necessary according to his word.
Luke thirteen, three, and verse number five.
I must confess Jesus Christ to be the Son of God.
Hear what the eunuch said.
He said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Acts chapter 8, verse numbers 36 and following.
And then finally, I must be buried with him in baptism for the remission of my sins, to
wash away my sins, to put me into Christ, to put me where salvation is and where grace is.
2 Timothy chapter 2, verse numbers 1 and verse number 10.
If I'm not where grace is, if I'm not where salvation is, I'm not saved.
And grace and salvation are in Christ Jesus.
So if I want to be saved by way of grace, Ephesians chapter 2, verse 5, verse number 8, I
must be in Christ to be saved.
If you're not in Christ by way of what I've just mentioned,
You have an opportunity to obey the gospel before it's eternally too late.
And for those of us that are struggling right now with our own personal issues, the
battles from within and from without, when we find ourselves falling short, the Bible
makes it clear that we are to confess our faults one to another and pray one for another,
knowing that the effectual fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much.
We can get it right with God, and we should not leave this setting.
Without doing so while we together stand and sing the invitation song.