I’m currently finishing off a talk on repentance for youth group. And I’ve been reading Acts 17. It’s a great passage, and it shows us that God commands us to repent.
The people in Athens at the time are really “religious”, that is they have idols, even one to an unknown God, but they are worshipping their worldly idols, not God. And Paul says:
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.
I can here people in Athens asking the question: “Yeah, well why do I need to repent?”
For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed.
“Ok, so that’s why I need to, but really, how is this true?”
He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.
O snap.
I can see pretty clear links between what was happening in Athens to what is happening now. In our world today we have so many idols that we worship: sex, money, power, Facebook, sport, fame, food. Things that we devote our lives to. But God commands us to repent. We need to turn away from this world and towards him.
So three things.
- Repent! Turn to God.
- Why? Because Jesus is coming back to judge the world.
- Really? Yeah, he rose from the dead as proof of this.
