Text for the message today, Acts 17, verses one through nine. We can all stand together out of reverence for the reading of God's word. Acts 17, let us hear now the living and abiding word of God. Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures. explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded and a great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women joined Paul and Silas. But the Jews who were not persuaded becoming envious took some of the evil men from the marketplace and gathering a mob set all the city in an uproar and attack the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, these who have turned the world upside down have come here too. Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus. And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go. This is the very word of God. Amen. You may be seated. Let us go to the Lord in prayer as we give our attention to this passage. Our God and Father, we praise you for your wondrous works recorded in scripture, recorded in history. We are thankful for what you have done. And we desire, Lord, to know your works, to appreciate them, to glory in them, and that the powerful saving work of Jesus would be at work in each of our hearts as well. We ask, Spirit of God, that you would apply this word to us. We pray this in the name of Christ, amen. I think all of us should agree, really no matter what our background is, that ever since Jesus came to earth, The world has never been the same. Noteworthy that our historical division happens between the BC period and the AD period, despite trying to change it to CE, common era, they still divided at the same time. So Jesus is still present even there in that historical record. Jesus has been changing the world for a very, very long time since his coming. And what we find in this passage is an example of how the Christian faith is subversive to the world. It does turn the world upside down. They didn't appreciate this in Thessalonica, but they were actually quite accurate, maybe not quite in the way they perceived it to be, but they were accurate in the charges that they brought against Christ's people in this passage. Think about how subversive the work of Christ is. In 2 Corinthians, 5 verse 19, it says that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. That's a big transformation that's taking place, is the reconciliation of the world. This is how Jesus changes all things. The salvation of Christ and the lordship of Christ, it turns the world upside down from the way that people often want it to be. It subverts human autonomy by grabbing those that rebel against God and bringing them under the Lordship of Christ and saving them from their sins. It subverts human pride by decimating our self-righteousness and showing us that we are lost apart from the salvation that Jesus has won. It subverts selfishness by making people no longer live for themselves but instead to live for God. These are subversive things. They're really good subversive things, I trust you will agree, but they are indeed quite transformational. Not only does this happen at a personal level, but Jesus does change societies and cultures. Sometimes that's a controversial thing to say, but I think history bears it out, whatever you think of it. The Christian faith has transformed societies and cultures in a variety of important ways. Jesus does, in short, upset and change the world. And that should be cause for thanksgiving amongst us as we have received Christ and submitted to him as our Lord and as our Savior. Now, as we come here in Acts 17, we come to a new location in the book of Acts. We're looking here at the city of Thessalonica. And it's quite appropriate to call it a city because there may have been some 200,000 people in Thessalonica at this time. Very, very large city in the ancient world. It was a port city where ships would have been going in and out frequently. There would have been other kinds of commerce and people from foreign lands traveling through. What a great place to spread the gospel, to see the gospel established here in Thessalonica. Now, what we'll find in our passages that this brief sketch of the church in Thessalonica mostly focuses upon the opposition the church received. It talks about the Jews and the riot and how they were attacking the house of Jason. So it gives us a sense that things didn't go well in Thessalonica. But I want us to keep in mind what the letters to the Thessalonians tell us because Paul writes to the Thessalonians later And we need to make sure we keep in mind how the gospel had been successfully planted in Thessalonica. So if you look at 1 Thessalonians 1, verses eight through 10, you'll see in this passage that Paul was very joyful. He was grateful that the gospel had been received in Thessalonica and it had done amazing things. Listen to what Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 1. For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone out so that we do not need to say anything. For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus. who delivers us from the wrath to come. Now, this was a remarkable example of the power of the gospel at work, wasn't it? That the Thessalonians had turned away from the idols they had long served and they were hoping in Jesus Christ. They had forsaken the things that they had once lived for, to live for someone better, to live for the Lord, to await the joyful return of Jesus Christ. This was the transformation that had taken place and Thessalonica. But not everybody likes this message as we see in our passage. So many of the accounts and acts are like this, that the gospel comes in, some people believe, and then the Christians get attacked and they get driven out of town in some cases. This is of course what the gospel does. The gospel is either a message that is joyfully received by those hearts that have been humbled, or it is a message that is offensive, and appears as foolishness and people wanna have nothing to do with it. So what I wanna focus on today is this, how the message of Jesus has a subversive effect in the world. And I of course mean that in a good sense, how it subverts the present world order in a good way. And this presses each of us to consider, do I live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ? Has my life been, radically reoriented, radically changed by the Savior, such that my world has been turned upside down as well. So we're gonna cover this passage in three portions. The first is that we're gonna see Paul's ministry to the Jews, how he was preaching in the synagogues in verses one through four. Secondly, we'll see that there are two charges brought against the Christians. The first charge was that they were turning the world upside down. That's in verses five through six. And then thirdly, we will look at the second charge, which is that they were proclaiming that there was another King, King Jesus. So that's what we're gonna look at, it's Paul's preaching and then the two charges that were brought against the Christians. So let's begin here with the proclamation in the synagogues in verses one through three. I'll read those verses again. Now, when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews. Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures, explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead and saying, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ. Luke tells us their journey log here. He gives us a sense of where they were going. They left Philippi in Acts chapter 16, which is where we were last week, and they made about a hundred mile journey down to Thessalonica and spent perhaps some days or weeks there in Thessalonica. We don't quite know how long, though the ministry was cut short by the opposition that they received. Now, as we often have seen, that it was Paul's custom to go into the synagogues and to first preach to the Jewish people and to set forth for them that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, is the Messiah, that he has fulfilled all the promises of the old covenant and that they are to put their trust in him. And what we see Paul doing is he is focusing in on a central message. It's very simply summarized by Luke when he says, this Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ. That apparently is the way that we could summarize Paul's preaching. It reminds us that gospel proclamation involves proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ. He is a focal point, a core focal point of gospel proclamation. You don't preach the gospel without preaching Jesus, of course. Now we don't know all that Paul would have said to the Jews, but we can see from other times he was preaching to the Jews that he drew upon the Old Testament scriptures. He would have brought out passages like Isaiah 53 concerning the suffering servant, and he would have told them that Jesus is that suffering servant, that he has borne the sins of many. He made intercession for the transgressors, and he is the king that fulfills the line of David. These are the kinds of things Paul would have been proclaiming. And when Paul wrote to the Corinthians later, he summed up his preaching and teaching ministry as preaching Christ and Him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2, he says, I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And so it's important for us to remember, friends, that this is the message that we take hold of and believe, as well as the message that we share with others. We're not preaching human wisdom. We're not simply preaching morality, though we certainly have a morality to proclaim that is rooted in the scriptures. But we are proclaiming Christ the Savior, Christ the Lord, and Christ crucified as the one who will redeem sinners from all of their transgressions. We're not preaching this vague morality of Confucianism, and we're not preaching human wisdom, the wisdom of Buddha. We're not preaching the insights of Plato. We are preaching Christ, who is the Son of God, and we are preaching Him as the one who was crucified for the salvation of sinners. Paul says in Colossians 1 that Not only do we preach Christ in terms of the evangelistic ministry, the first thing that we tell people who do not know him, but even in the preaching of the church, we're preaching Christ. We're setting forth Christ as central in our proclamation. Colossians 1 verse 28, he says, him, that is Christ we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom that we may present everyone mature in Christ. Now we seek maturity, we seek growth in our church, don't we? We often pray about these things. Lord, grow our church, make us mature, make us steadfast. Well, Paul tells us that the way that that is going to happen is by us proclaiming Christ to one another. That is very essential for our Christian growth in the Lord. We must proclaim Christ in all his fullness. We preach Christ crucified, we preach Christ risen from the dead, and we preach all of his offices. We talk about how he is the prophet who declares to us the truth of God. We tell one another that he is king, he is Lord. We submit ourselves to him and he protects us. He shepherds us as a good king. We speak about him as priest that he intercedes for us at the right hand of God. And what comfort comes from knowing that he intercedes for us always, no matter what's taking place in our lives. And I wanna use this opportunity to encourage all of us to have a Christ oriented word ministry to one another. And this applies to more than just those of us who come into the pulpit and preach the word. This is relevant to all of us. that as we bring out the word of God and share it with our families, or we share it with one another, that we need to have Christ as a central focal point in our ministry to one another. And to the husbands and fathers, this is a good opportunity to remind us that all of our wives, our wives and our children, they need to hear us proclaim the Lord Jesus to them. They need the prophetic voice of Christ in his words speaking to our families as our brother Todd encouraged us just a bit ago. They need to hear that Christ is the great high priest who suffered for their sins, who rose again and who can help them, who graciously receives them. We need to share this with our families. And we also need to make sure our families know that we need Jesus too by humbly confessing our sins and crying out to the Savior ourselves. Otherwise we would be hypocrites to tell them they need Jesus and we apparently don't need him very much. It wouldn't make any sense. And to the mothers in our congregation, your children, they need to hear Jesus. As you give them the wisdom of Proverbs and as you remind them of the terrible consequences of lying and why they shouldn't hit their brother or sister, they need to hear Jesus and how Jesus is the solution to their heart problems even in those specific applications. To the children in our congregation, you've heard your parents tell you that you have a problem with sin. That is very clear, right? We all have a problem with sin, but thanks be to God, we have a savior who fixes the problem of our sins. You must believe in him, you must look to him, and you must draw from his grace if you would live the Christian life. To the young adults of our church, if you would grow in wisdom and maturity, if you would have a life purpose, if you would know what life is all about, You're not gonna answer any of those questions outside of Christ because in him are stored all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Do not look to any other source. You will not find satisfaction, you will not find wisdom, and you will not have the purpose that you were made for. This is the burden that Paul had as he preached to the Jews in the synagogue. He wanted them to know that Jesus is the Christ, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that he has fulfilled everything that God said would be fulfilled and their hope would be found in him. Now, thankfully, some people believe this message. We don't know how many, but as the First Thessalonians tells us, there was a great reception of the gospel. Perhaps some of that happened after Paul left as the Christians that were there continued the ministry work. and we're thankful to see the reception of the gospel, but we should also not be surprised that it provokes a reaction. It provokes a very vehement response on those who do not like the message. It can often be a good sign if you have a vehement response to the message. Now, we don't wish to unnecessarily offend people by saying things that are unnecessarily offensive, but we want to set forth the truth of the Bible, and that will, at times, offend people, as you all know. Now, what happened here was such an intense reaction that the Jews incited a mob and a riot against the Christians, trying to capture Paul. Let's look at verses five through six. But the Jews, who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, these who have turned the world upside down have come here too. Now there's some irony here. I hope you grasp the irony of what's taking place because The charge is that the Christians are turning the world upside down, but who started the riot? Who started the mob? Not the Christians. Paul's preaching Jesus, peacefully, patiently setting forth the word of God. Paul's not getting these big crowds going and storming people's houses. It is the Jewish mob and as well as the Gentiles that were probably involved here in this riot. And this is the irony that we sometimes experience as Christians. We will at times in setting forth the truth of Christ or living according to that truth, we might be accused of upsetting things. You might be accused of being a troublemaker because of your commitments to the Lord Jesus. You might be accused of many things that are not true. And yet Jesus says, blessed are you when people say falsely all these things on my account. Now, this brings us to the first charge that was brought against them, which was that they were turning the world upside down. Now, as I've already pointed out, I think these charges are true when rightly understood, though I don't think they were true in the way that they were charged. Do Christians turn the world upside down? Does Christ turn the world upside down? Well, the answer is yes, but not in the sense that, unbelievers often think. Some accuse Christians of hateful speech and behavior, and though we may find instances where that is true, generally speaking, that's not actually an accurate charge. If Christians are speaking and acting faithfully, it may appear by the world's standards that they are being hateful in their speech and actions, when they're perhaps just speaking the truth as graciously as they can. So Christians are not rebels and revolutionaries in the sinful sense that we might use those words, but Christians are revolutionaries and perhaps even rebels in the sense that we oppose this rebellious, sinful world order that is around us that is at war with the one true God. We resist that. We do not be conformed to the present world. do press back against that. And that may indeed be appearing rebellious and revolutionary. And similarly, when the second charge was made that Christians say there is another King, that is absolutely true. I'm glad they actually got that part of the message that yes, we're saying there is another King above Caesar. And that we most certainly believe. So in what sense is it true that Christ and then by extension his people as they proclaim the message of Christ, in what sense does that subvert the world? That's what I wanna focus on with a few points here. And some of these I've already alluded to, but let's go through each of these subversive effects that the Christian faith has upon the world. And I could probably add to this list, but these were the ones that rose to my mind as being significant ways that the faith, the Christian faith subverts the world. First, a verse of effect, number one, that the Christian faith identifies rebellion and calls for faith and repentance. The Christian message turns the world upside down by identifying the world's rebellion and saying, you need to return to God. You need to believe in the Savior that God has provided. You need to repent of these sinful ways that are destructive to you and to others. The Christian message is saying that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and that we are estranged from God. We are not in relationship with him until we have come to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith. The gospel message then is very subversive because it identifies this obvious elephant in the room that we don't wanna call it what it really is. People tend to not wanna call it that. The scriptures tell us that every one of us are as sheep who have gone astray. We have turned everyone to our own ways. And this is not good. It is rebellion and it's destructive for us. But this is subversive because rebels don't wanna be called out for rebellion. As our Lord Jesus says in John three, that speaking to Nicodemus, he says, this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world And men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light lest his deeds should be exposed. If you love darkness, you won't love the light because the light exposes the reality of the darkness that you've embraced. Even though you're trying to call it something else, you're trying to pass it off as something that is perhaps good or appropriate lawful when it's not. So this can be offensive. It can be difficult for people to hear, but friends, I want us to understand what a merciful thing it is for God to tell us this. It is a mercy of God to tell us our real condition, to tell us our real need, that we are in a desperate condition apart from his salvation. We need the Lord Jesus Christ. We desperately need him. If you had a doctor that came to you and gave you a faithful diagnosis of your condition and offered to provide you a effective treatment, would you threaten and sue the doctor for doing so? This is often what gospel preachers experience and what we experience as we may share the message. We say, this is your fundamental problem. This is what you need. It's a free gift of grace, but we are sometimes rejected for saying so. And yet it is a mercy of God to subvert the world and bring this message of salvation to the world. Thanks be to God that he does subvert the rebellion of this world and that he is reconciling people to himself through the redeeming work of Jesus. Secondly, we come to the second subversive effect of the message that The Christian message turns the world upside down by identifying the idolatry of our hearts and dethroning those idols and calling us to live for the glory of God and the Lordship of Christ. Basic to our separation from God and our fallen condition is that we attempt to live for ourselves. We exalt ourselves ultimately above all other things. We may have other things in our lives that function as idols, Self is our biggest problem. It's our biggest barrier. It's our biggest hindrance to the life that God has called us to live. And we exalt ourselves in our own thinking. We make ourselves to be the most important people in the universe, it would seem at points, it seems to be our assumption. And this is one of the things that Jesus fixes about us. He dethrones self. and he is enthroned in our hearts as Lord. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 15, it says that this was one of the purposes of Jesus's coming. It says that he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. You see what Paul's saying about our natural fallen condition is until We are redeemed, we live for ourselves. That's just basic to fallen humanity. But what Jesus does is he redeems us and he brings us under his gracious Lordship. He brings us under his easy yoke and burden. And then he employs us in his service. And he gives us things to do that are no longer oriented towards ourselves, but that will ultimately bring much glory to Him and will really be the way that we find true satisfaction since that is the way that we were designed to be in the beginning. Now, this is highly subversive to the world's ways. If you expose the most precious idols of self and of pride, it will come at a cost to us. And it will come at a cost to ourselves as our own issues with pride and self-focus need to be dethroned as well. This is another good way that Jesus subverts the world. Third subversive effect is that the Christian message turns the world upside down by proclaiming Christ's kingship, which calls for all human authorities to submit themselves to the ultimate king, as well as calling them to repent of their tyranny and oppression. And I bring this subversive effect out to focus a bit on the broader societal implications of how the Christian faith subverts things, the Christian message comes and it says that there is one and only one who is King of kings and Lord of lords and that every human authority, every president, every prime minister, every king, every parliament needs to bow the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ and to rule in the fear of God and to turn away from tyranny and oppression knowing that those who do such things will face the judgment seat of Christ, and then to rule in such a way that would be consistent with his kingship. This is a very good thing that the King of kings and Lord of lords, he brings kings under himself. Sometimes he saves them mercifully and makes them to be those that rule in the fear of the Lord. And we remember that this is one of the purposes of Jesus's coming. Isaiah 61 speaks about how the Lord Jesus came to break oppression. It says, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God. This is the passage that our Lord Jesus, when he was in the synagogue at Nazareth, he stood up and he read from this passage and he says, Today, the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. And what our Lord was telling us is that ever since he has come into the world, he's come to break the heavy bonds that we put place upon ourselves because of our sinful ways. And also to break the bonds that are often brought about by tyrants and evildoers that affect people. He brings judgment to the wicked, but he exalts the humble and he gives them salvation. This is the way of our Lord. the Prince of Peace, and as he brings his gospel to a people and to a land, it does inevitably have some measure of transformation upon that people in that society. And I think Christian missionaries who have been faithful to this call have understood this over the centuries. You might think of someone like William Carey, the pioneer missionary to India, His primary aim, of course, is to proclaim the gospel, to see even one soul saved. He would rejoice to see one soul saved, and he worked for years to see such a conversion take place, and thankfully many others followed. But William Carey knew that in proclaiming the Lord Jesus to the people of the land of India, that he couldn't be silent about the evils that were around him. He had to speak up about the oppression about the caste system and how destructive it was to human relationships. He had to speak up against the terrible practice of burning widows when their husbands had died. He had to speak up about these things because these things were the kinds of things that Jesus came to save us from. And so inevitably then, as he proclaims the salvation of Christ, he also proclaims the kingship of Christ, the law of Christ, and how it is to be applied by this people who turned to him. We could think of a politician, a Christian politician like William Wilberforce, the Christian statesman of England in the late 1700s, where he was a committed Christian, a man who loved to share the gospel with everyone that he met. And he worked in the British Parliament for matters of justice and righteousness and spent decades trying to see the slave trade abolished and ultimately about the day of his death got to hear about the actual existence of slavery in the British Empire coming to an end. And he understood that this was part of his commitment as a Christian is that he had to speak up against tyranny and oppression and evil the evils of kidnapping people and enslaving them. He knew that the message of the gospel had something to say about this. And yes, it subverted things. It subverted the economic order. It subverted all of the profits that were coming in through this evil practice. And thanks be to God, that is what happened as he and others labored and prayed for righteousness to be upheld in that land. It reminds us that Christians are to be light bringers wherever we go. We are to bring the light of Christ. We are to bring truth and light and grace and compassion and justice and righteousness as we are given opportunity to do so. So brothers and sisters, we should be thankful that the Lord Jesus turns the world upside down because this world desperately needs to be turned upside down. Now we go on to the second charge here in verses seven through nine. We come to this charge that was brought as they attacked the house of Jason, which Jason was likely one of the Christian brothers here who was perhaps lodging Paul and Silas. Verse seven, it says, Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus. Now, if you're charged with this, what do you say? Guilty as charged or amen? Yes, we say there is another King, Jesus. Now, what I think they probably got wrong here is that I don't think Paul was actually acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, but to the degree he was able to work within the laws of Roman society, he would do so. But if the call of Christ demanded to go above and beyond that, yes, sometimes Christians have disobeyed Caesar in order to obey Christ. But what I think they were falsely charging the Christians and Thessalonica with was a revolutionary, a destabilizing effect, a unlawful engaging in society, and that wasn't true. Of course, they were peaceable. Paul was peaceable. They weren't creating the riots. And the reason that we as Christians, we don't engage in riots. We don't use the force of the sword in the advance of the kingdom of God, because we know that the kingdom of God comes not by violent revolution, but by supernatural regeneration. This is how the kingdom of Christ comes. It is by the power of the word and spirit. So anytime that the gospel may have been subverted into the use of the sword, it has done harm to the church. There is, of course, a place for the civil magistrate to use the sword in the exercise of justice, but it is not the role of the church to do so. And Christians then, as we engage in this ministry of the kingdom, we should not be known for violent revolution, but we should be known for that peaceable proclamation of the glad tidings of Christ, which will bring about a reaction. It's also true that as Christians that we desire to be submissive to the civil government that is around us in so far as we are also able to be faithful to our Lord, our ultimate Lord, the Lord Jesus. And if the decrees of Caesar or the decrees of the King of England or the executive actions of a US president or the actions of a United States Congress, if they contradict the will of King Jesus, we join the apostles and we say, we must obey God rather than men. Christians do have a long history of saying no to Caesar and getting into trouble for it. But insofar as the decrees of Caesar don't contradict the will of Christ, Christians are peaceable. They should be the best citizens a nation has. They should pay their taxes. They should be engaging in the normal ordinary affairs of that land and seeking to be salt, seeking to bring light, to that place, but there are times where Christians will be resisted, persecuted, oppressed because of their commitments. And it's true that the Lordship of Christ in Thessalonica would begin to change the way that these new Christians would live in Thessalonica. Recognize, brothers and sisters, that the Lordship of Christ is meant to change everything about the way that we live. It's meant to change the way that we speak, the way that we act. It has implications for all the practical things of life, how we raise our children, how we do business in the world, how we use our finances. All of these things are affected by the Lordship of Christ. And we desire that the Lordship of Christ reshape everything about us. And so this charge was very accurate. Christians do say there is another King, King Jesus. And not only do we say there is another King Jesus, we say that he is the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords, and the ruler of all the kings of the earth, as Revelation chapter one says. And so basic is it to the Christian faith that we embrace the lordship of Christ, that we learn in Romans chapter 10, that it is a part of the saving confession that we proclaim. The Bible tells us that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And notice the word Lord there. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Romans 10 verse nine says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. It's not possible to be a Christian Christian and at the same time deny the Lordship of Christ. Those are utterly contradictory claims. There was a controversy in the 1980s and the 1990s among some evangelical churches, among some Christians that debated whether you could receive Jesus as Savior and then optionally receive him as Lord at a later time. It was called the Lordship controversy. And in some ways, it's really shocking that anybody in the church could have such a debate because you're missing out on the core central confession that saves, which is that Jesus is Lord and that God raised him from the dead. You can't get away from this. Christians are by definition, those who have come under the Lordship of Christ. Jesus said in Luke 6, verse 46, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do the things which I say? This is the call of the Lordship of Christ upon our lives. And so we join the Christians in Thessalonica. We say, yes, Jesus is Lord. And he's not just Lord over a limited region. He's not just Lord over the church. As Peter said in Acts chapter 10, he is Lord of all. So as we've read about these events in the church in Thessalonica, I think we've learned of some of the ways that Jesus turns the world upside down. And I'm so glad that Jesus came to turn the world upside down because this world has a lot of fixing that it needs. It needs a lot of transformation. It needs a lot of upsetting. And if your life has been turned upside down by Jesus's saving power, I trust that you're thankful that he interrupted your life as well. That he didn't leave you the way that you were, didn't leave you in your sinful condition and your desperate condition, but that he intervened. He graciously worked upon your heart. He drew you to himself. and he's transforming you. What a gift this is. And even as we have said throughout the message that Jesus turns the world upside down, and that was the charge that was brought, we know that more accurately we could say, Jesus turns the world right side up. That's what he does, is he fixes it back to the way it was supposed to be. You have all these people that are rejecting God, resisting God, suppressing the truth and unrighteousness, they're messing up the world. All of us mess up the world by nature until the redemption of Christ comes, but Jesus puts the world back to the way it was supposed to be at the beginning. He is fixing everything that is broken. Or as Revelation 21 says, behold, I make all things new. Don't you know that all things need to be made new? Everything in this world, the suffering, the death, the tragedies, wildfires destroying houses, people experiencing this sorrow, and all of it ultimately because of the fall of Adam and all the consequences that have followed, this is a world that desperately needs fixing. Sin brings so much sadness into our lives. It destroys so much. It hurts our relationships. It damages our health. Rather than satisfying us, it leaves us unsatisfied and discouraged and depressed. Yes, Jesus does come to subvert your rebellion and your self-living, but this is exactly what you and I need. So thanks be to God that the world is being repaired by our Lord Jesus Christ. And I pray that the effect of the gospel in Thessalonica that we read about would be the effect that we see more and more amongst us and our community affected in the same way. I just wanna close once again by reading 1 Thessalonians 1, and we'll pray in light of the effect of the gospel that is described here. Paul said, for from you, the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out so that we do not need to say anything. For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you and how you turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. Thanks be to God that we have seen this work of the gospel amongst us, and we will now pray for its increase in our land. Let's pray. Our God and Father, we praise you that this word has come to us. We thank you that the glad tidings of Jesus have sounded forth here in Elizabeth, We thank you that you have turned over our lives from the way that they once were to be repaired and restored and redeemed by our Lord Jesus. We desire, Lord, to see so many more things in our world turned upside down and then put back in the order that they were originally made to be. We ask, Lord, that you would send forth this word throughout our community. We pray that the counties of Elbert and Douglas would receive this message here at our church and at other congregations around us, that we would see the world being turned upside down by Jesus. And we praise him now for this work and we pray in the name of Christ, amen.