Prepare For Sunday | July 12th, 2026
Don't just show up on Sunday. Be prepared to meet with God.
Our desire for each worship service is for you to enter into the presence of the living God through Christ by His Spirit with His people.
The goal of this entry is to help prepare you to do that.
A Living King in a City of Dead Gods | Acts 17:16-34
One of the most delightful things about the World Cup being here is watching visitors from around the world discover ordinary American things and be completely amazed by them. Drive-throughs. Costco. Free Refills.
A few weeks ago, a Japanese soccer fan named Nobunaga posted a viral thread about his first visit to a Mexican restaurant. Fifteen million views. Free chips and salsa arrived at his table before he even ordered, and he was so alarmed that he flagged down the waiter: "We have not earned these."
The waiter shrugged. "They just come with the table, man."
Nobunaga writes: "In my land, hospitality is a debt. Every gift creates an obligation, weighed carefully, returned in the proper season with interest of feeling. Here, the gift arrives before you have even proven you can pay for dinner."
And then — buried in the middle of the thread — he writes:
"Generosity that arrives before the request cannot be repaid. It can only be survived."
What a line!
This Sunday we’re taking a summer detour from our Asia travelogue and stopping in Athens with the apostle Paul — the most famous city in the ancient world, the intellectual capital of the empire, and the place where Paul preached one of the most brilliant sermons in the entire New Testament.
And just like a tourist, we’ll walk the agora with him.
We’ll notice what he noticed.
And we’ll ask what it means to live in our “Athens” — our own city of altars — as people who have been ambushed by a grace we did not earn.
Bring a friend. Bring your questions. And if you’ve been trying to earn your chips your whole life, come sit down at a table you did not set.
See you Sunday!
Here is our Outline:
Acts 17:16–34
A Living King in a City of Dead Gods
Summer Travelogue — A Stop in Athens
Key Text — Acts 17:22–28
I. Paul Saw What Everyone Else Stopped Noticing (17:16–17)
II. Paul Entered the Marketplace That Was Selling Everything Except What They Truly Needed (17:18–21)
III. Paul Named the God Who Was There the Whole Time (17:22–29)
IV. Paul Preached a Living King in a City of Dead Gods (17:30–34)
For Reflection This Week
What has this city gotten you accustomed to that ought to grieve you?
What is Lake Nona selling you that you have stopped believing will actually deliver?
Which of your real goods — career, family, wellness, belonging — has quietly climbed too high?
What would it mean to trade the dead gods you are serving for the Living King?
Call To Worship:
Isaiah 55:1–3, 6–7
“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live…”
“Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.”
Songs of Worship
Glorious Day
Canvas And Clay
Holy Spirit
Blessed Assurance
Corporate Confession of Sin
Leader:
Brothers and sisters, the Apostle Paul tells us that the Athenians exchanged the living God for gods made by human hands. We may not bow before statues of gold and stone, but we are no less tempted to trust in the work of our own hands. We look to our careers for significance, our families for identity, our achievements for security, our possessions for comfort, and the approval of others for belonging. We have taken good gifts and asked them to bear the weight that only God can carry.
The Lord invites us to come honestly before him, confessing not only the sins we have committed, but the loves we have disordered. Let us confess our sins together.
Congregation:
Most merciful Father, You alone are the living God, yet we have often lived as though life could be found somewhere else.
Leader:
We have loved your gifts more than we have loved you.
We have trusted our strength more than your grace, our plans more than your providence, our accomplishments more than your approval.
Congregation:
We confess that we have looked for meaning in what cannot satisfy,
security in what cannot last, and identity in what cannot save.
Leader:
Forgive us for making good things into ultimate things.
Reorder our loves by your Spirit. Turn our hearts from the idols we have fashioned to the risen Christ who alone is worthy of our worship.
Congregation:
Teach us to rest not in what we have achieved, but in what Christ has accomplished for us. For we ask this in his holy name.
Amen.
Assurance of Pardon
Leader:
“For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
‘I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
and to revive the heart of the contrite.’”
(Isaiah 57:15)
Brothers and sisters, the God who is infinitely high has drawn wonderfully near in Jesus Christ. He revives the humble, forgives the repentant, and welcomes all who come to him by faith. In Christ your sins are forgiven, your heart is made new, and you are received as beloved children of God.
Thanks be to God!
