Once again, Paul’s powerful Gospel preaching evokes strong reactions both positively and negatively, bringing new souls into the Kingdom and stirring up a mob that seeks to drive him and Silas out of Thessalonica with the charge that they are “turning the world upside down.”
Transcription (automatically-generated):
Today's study finds us continuing in the city of Thessalonica, the capital and most important city in first-century Macedonia. With a population of around 200,000, it was a major port and commercial center and still exists today as the Greek city of Thessaloniki. It was one of the few cities in the Roman Empire that had been granted the status of free city. That meant that they were free to govern themselves in a Greek rather than a Roman way and did not need to have any Roman governors or officials ruling over their day-to-day affairs in the city as long as they could keep the peace and collect the taxes. Being a free city was a privileged status for any territory.
I'm going to go over the verses that BJ covered last week, just to add a few additional details, and then we'll keep moving through the text. In verse two, it says, as usual, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead. Would you underline that word in verse three? Necessary. This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.
Now remember, the Jewish people were expecting a Messiah who would be a conquering political figure, a man who would reverse the fortunes of national Israel, liberating her from Roman occupation and restoring her to a place of prominence among the nations. As a people, Israel still couldn't understand that their greatest need was not national independence, but freedom from sin and eternal death. Considering their misinformed expectations, a message about a Messiah who came to suffer and die seemed wildly out of place for the time. Bizarre and offensive on the surface, even Jesus's own disciples had trouble wrapping their heads around this idea. It's why they scattered following his arrest and crucifixion.
This isn't what was supposed to happen in their minds. Despite Jesus's warnings and repeated predictions that he needed to die and would die, they couldn't see it coming. They couldn't fit it in their paradigms of who the Messiah was to be. To the Greeks and Romans who shared a pantheon of gods under different names, the idea of an almighty God who became a man to suffer and die at the hands of men sounded pathetic and nonsensical. That's not what gods do.
If there's a supreme being, he's not doing that. Have you seen the Greek gods? The dudes are jacked. They rule from Mount Olympus without ever wearing a shirt and do things like throw lightning bolts from heaven. And they were like, that's a god right there.
Look at that guy. And so, when someone would come along, as Paul will later in this chapter, to the Areopagus in Athens, and preach an almighty God who became flesh and blood indistinguishable from any other man so that he could suffer and die at the hands of the men over whom he ruled. They said, this doesn't make sense. You don't seem to understand what a God is. And so, for almost two thousand years, most Jews and most Gentiles have found the Gospel to be bizarre, offensive, and foolish.
And that's because for almost two thousand years, Jews and Gentiles have been asking the wrong kinds of questions about Jesus and the gospel and continue to today. The questions we ask sound like this does this teaching, does this Gospel align with my opinion of what God should be like? Or does this gospel, does this teaching allow me to keep living my life the way I want to live my life?
Or does this message affirm what I want to be true rather than the only question that truly matters ever? Is this true?
Paul wrote about this to the Corinthian believers and told them verses are on your outline. The word of the rose is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved. For it is written I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and I will set aside the intelligence of the intelligent. Where is the one who is wise? Where is the teacher of the law?
So, where's the scholar? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn't God made the world's wisdom foolish? For since in God's wisdom the world did not know God through wisdom, God was pleased to save those who believe through the foolishness of what is preached. For the Jews ask for signs and the Greeks seek wisdom.
But we preach Christian crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. Yet to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, because God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom and God's weakness is stronger than human strength. We see this play out the reality of Paul's writings every day in the voices of the culture and even, sadly, in the voices and opinions of the sciences. I think of the most glaring example that the evidence for a supremely intelligent and powerful and transcendent creator of the universe being overwhelming. Overwhelming?
Why? Because something cannot come from nothing. Because order cannot arise from disorder apart from an external organizer. Consciousness can never arise from unconsciousness, and code cannot write itself. It demands an intelligent coder.
And yet the most brilliant minds, we are told in the fields of theoretical physics, say, well, maybe there's some sort of magical universe-making machine in a parallel reality that spews out universes. You don't need God to have a creator, you simpleton. God says oh, my God's. Foolishness is wiser than human wisdom. God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
After showing them what the Old Testament scriptures prophesied about the Messiah, Paul would tell the Jews and the God-fearers about Jesus, about his life, about his ministry and death and resurrection, and explain how he was the fulfillment of all those prophecies. And if you want to grow in your knowledge and understanding of the Bible as a whole, learn how to do this. Learn how to show someone where the ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus are prophesied in the Old Testament Scriptures hundreds of years before Jesus came to the earth as a man. Learn to explain how the Law points to Christ, how the sacrificial system points to Christ, how the Levitical priesthood points to Christ, how the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai points to Christ. Learn this and you will understand the Bible, especially the Old Testament, in a much, much deeper way.
Write this down. The Old Testament can only be truly understood through the lens of Christ's ministry, death, and resurrection. You will not properly understand the Old Testament until you understand it through the lens of Christ's ministry, death, and resurrection. Let me read verses two and three one more time. It says, as usual, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures, explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead.
This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah. Paul explains that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and die from and, sorry, suffer and rise from the dead. Necessary? Why? Because there was no other way.
There was no other way. Many want to believe that the gulf between humanity and God can be bridged by man ascending to a higher plane of consciousness. Man must enlighten himself to become like God so that he can commune with God. The ludicrous arrogance of such beliefs lies in the implication that man is already within striking distance of God. How preposterous is it to think that the Almighty God, who made everything that is, is different from us only in ways that can be bridged through meditation and mental knowledge?
That's delusional it's? Idiotic. The Bible explains that the gulf between man and God exists because God is holy and man is not. God is perfect without blemish. He is morally flawless.
All his thoughts and actions are virtuous, right and good, only ever and always. Man is not like God and God's holiness, god's perfection is so intense that imperfection sin cannot dwell with Him.
God is the source of every good thing. He is the definition, the one who defines what is good. He is the author of life and joy and love and hope and peace. And when we experience any of those things, even for a moment, to any degree in this life, it is a grace from God. It is an undeserved taste of who he is.
We will all live forever. All of us. Those who meet God's standard of perfection will spend eternity with Him, the source of life and love and goodness and peace and joy in every good thing. And those who do not meet God's standard of perfection will spend eternity separated from him, separated from the only source in existence of life and love and peace and joy that exists. The problem, of course, is that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
And the problem with perfection is that once it has been lost by its very nature, it can never be regained. It's like trying to put toothpaste back into the tube once it's been squeezed out. Perfection means a perfect life. It's not enough to say, well, from now on, I'll be perfect. First of all, no, you won't.
And secondly, it's too late. You have already blown living a perfect life, and there's nothing you can do to erase the sins of your past. You cannot undo the past. You cannot be perfect in the present, nor can you be perfect in the future. And therefore, you cannot meet God's standard of perfection.
I've shared this before. People delude themselves into thinking that when they stand before God, all they're going to have to do is point out maybe five people who were worse than them. Well, that guy's a way bigger jerk than me. Have you heard her? She's horrible.
I'm so much better than these five people. If you're grading on a curve, however you want to grade it, I make the cut, because I can point out a lot of people that are more trash than me.
People want to believe that they will get to choose their own definition of good and then tell God to judge them by their definition of good. The problem is, you're not God, so you don't get to decide what the standard of good is. I'm sorry to shatter your hopes, but when everybody stands to have their lives, Judea, you will not sit on the throne of God and also in the docket and judge yourself. God will judge you. God determines what is good, and he has its perfection.
Well, can't God just let it all go, Jeff? I mean, if he's so good, why can't he just forgive everybody's sins and let everybody into heaven? That seems like the loving thing to do. Well, let's be honest. When we say that, we don't really mean everybody, do we?
You don't want to see Hitler or Mao or Stalin or Pole Pot in heaven, right? And why? Why is that? Why shouldn't those people be in heaven? Why do you think that?
Well, because they were evil. Unfathomably wicked. They killed millions of people.
So, you do think there should be a standard for heaven? You don't think God should just forgive everybody and let everybody in? It's just that we think our standard should determine who gets into heaven and who doesn't. And how do we come up with those standards? Well, we just look at ourselves, don't we?
We look at ourselves and we say, I am pretty confident I can make it through life without murdering someone so I can get behind the idea that murder should be punished. I'm super confident I will never commit a Holocaust. So, I'm really comfortable condemning Hitler.
And we form our moral views and our societal laws based on the behaviors that we do or don't want to engage in. We don't condemn gossip with the same vigor. We do murder because we know we're going to be guilty of gossip many times in our lives. And here's my point we come up with laws and we punish those who break them based on our level of morality, collectively, as a society. Is God, as the creator of humanity, not entitled to do the same?
Is God not entitled to judge based on his morality? Of course, He is. As the ruler, sustainer, and creator of the universe, he has every right to judge his creation and to judge it according to his standards. Just as we judge our society by our standards and from God's perspective, based on his perfection. Hear me on this the smallest sin is as abhorrent as something like the rape and murder of a child would be to us.
And God cannot simply let our sins go for the same reason we cannot simply let it go that somebody raped and murdered a child. Loves demands justice. Things must be made right. We all understand this. Evil must be punished.
We intrinsically get this. We just have no idea how holy God is. No concept, therefore, of how abhorrent our sins are to God. We think we come to God with our sins, and we're like a baby with a soiled diaper. We flatter ourselves.
We flatter ourselves. He is so holy, so perfect, so righteous, so flawless.
Our smallest sin is abhorrent to Him.
And then we want to stand back and say, why doesn't he just let it go? Why doesn't he just forget and forgive, move on?
Suffice it to say, we are in a bad position. Every person has sinned and fallen short of God's standards. And because of those sins, we are separated from God in this life and destined to be separated from Him for eternity.
But the God who is love, the perfect Father, did something that astonished even the angels who have been singing his praises through the ages, the supernatural beings who shouted for joy on the day the universe was created. God Himself, Jesus', became a proxy for all humanity. God, the perfect judge, ruled that this would be acceptable. Jesus could serve as a substitute for humanity past, present, and future. And so, incredibly, doing what only came naturally to the One Who is the definition of love, the Son of God Who created man, became a man, and he lived a perfect life.
He never sinned. He never fell short. He never rebelled against his heavenly father. He lived the life that we have all failed to live. And he met God's standard of perfection.
But there's still this issue of justice. Our sins still happened. And will happen. And they still need to be dealt with. They need to be punished in order for things to be made right.
So, Jesus became our substitute in that also. He took the punishment for all our sins in our place. He was beaten, he was scorned, he was spat upon, and he was nailed to a cross, where he died in our place. But remember, Jesus lived and died as our substitute. Whatever happened to him was happening to us as well.
And when the perfect life had been loved and our punishment had been metered out on the cross, Jesus, our proxy, was still lying dead in a grave. And if that's where Jesus's life had ended, then that's where our life would end, in the grave.
Death only exists because sin exists. We were not created to die. It is a consequence of our decision to sin and rebel against God. When sin entered the universe, death entered the universe. Because Jesus did not sin, death could not claim Him.
It could not hold him. It had no rights over him. And so, despite taking its best shot, death could not win against Jesus. And he rose from the grave in glory and in power, in a new body fit for eternity. A body completely free from the effects of our fallen universe.
A perfect mind and a perfect spirit in a perfect vessel. Jesus was our proxy. And so that means what happened to him happened to us. So, like him, death will not be able to hold us. Death will have no rights over us.
And when we die, we will not find ourselves separated from the goodness of God for all eternity. Rather, we will find ourselves more alive than we have ever been. Come on. Jesus made a way. Jesus bridged the uncrossable gulf between man and God.
And Jesus is the substitute for anyone willing to follow Him as Lord and say, I want Jesus to count as my substitute. And the offer is simple. You get Jesus's life, and he gets your life. It's called the divine exchange. We follow Jesus, we worship Jesus, and we Derbe Jesus.
Because we belong to Jesus. Our lives are not our own. He owns us, and we are so grateful that he does.
But please understand, there is only one way to have Jesus's life, death and resurrection count as yours, and it's trading our life for his. That is the only offer on the table. There is no offer where you get to retain control of your life and receive all the benefits of Christ. That is not a gospel that exists. It's his life for your life, his life for your life.
And if you want to make that exchange today, I'm going to pray with you, going to pray for you at the end of this message, and give you an opportunity to do that. But if God is loving in your heart right now, if you can sense him calling you to himself. Do not suppress it. Do not ignore it. I am begging you.
You are hearing from God. Respond to it today. Don't let it just pass. This is what Paul was teaching the Thessalonians when he explained that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and die. There is no other way to be saved other than through Jesus.
There is no way to God but through Jesus. This is why Jesus himself said plainly, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
When I look at our culture, the tactics of Satan are so obvious. They're so glaringly apparent. When the issue that is destroying humanity and damning him for eternity is sin, what message could be more destructive than one that deludes people into believing their sin does not even exist? A message that encourages the culture to celebrate their sin. This is the subtext behind all of the messaging permeating our popular culture.
You're amazing just the way you are. You're perfect with all your flaws. Be yourself.
It hardens a person toward the Gospel because it deludes and deceives them into believing they are not a sinner who's fallen short of the glory of God. As Paul told the Corinthians, if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, who is the God of this age? It's Satan. He's the God of the culture and has been for thousands of years.
According to the Bible, our world shouts in celebration, I was born this way. The Gospel declares, you mean a sinner? Correct. That is why you must be born again. Paul quoted the prophet Isaiah when he wrote to the Romans.
Isaiah prophesied about Jesus, the Messiah, and what the world's reaction to him would be when he came to the earth. The Lord said, Look, I am putting a stone in Zion to stumble over and a rock to trip over, and the one who believes on him will not be put to shame. The issue is sin, and the only cure is Christ.
Verse four. It says some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a large number of God-fearing Greeks, as well as a number of the leading Romans. Paul probably spent a total of around six months in Thessalonica and would later write 1 and 2 Thessalonians to remind the believers there of what he had taught them during their time together. And what's fascinating is if you go and read and study 1 and 2 Thessalonians, you'll find that they are packed full of some of the Bible's most important teachings on eschatology, the theology of the end times. He only spent six months there.
So, in other words, Paul treated the subject of eschatology as though it was one of the most important things believers needed to understand. And he taught the Thessalonians about it extensively during the few months that he had with them. And this flies in the face of many in the Church who claim that eschatology isn't really that important or is merely a subject for advanced believers. The apostle. Paul disagrees.
Verse five. But the Jews became jealous, and they brought together some wicked men from the marketplace, formed a mob, and started a riot in the city. Sadly, jealousy was the response from many Jewish religious leaders toward the Gospel. When Paul shows up teaching the Gospel that unlocks the true meaning of the Old Testament Scriptures and points to Jesus as the way of salvation rather than the Law, which was administered by these religious leaders, well, they could see their prominence and their prestige slipping away before their very eyes. In Acts 13, when Paul was in Pisidian, Antioch, Antioch, we read the following Sabbath, almost the whole town assembled to hear the word of the Lord.
But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began to contradict what Paul was saying, insulting him. The word of the Lord spread through the whole region, but the Jews incited the prominent God-fearing woman and the leading men of the city. They stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their district. In the early days of the Church in Jerusalem, we read this in Acts five believers were added to the Lord in increasing numbers, multitudes of both men and women. As a result, they would carry the sick out into the streets and lay them on COTS and mats, so that when Peter came by, at least a shadow might fall on some of them.
In addition, a multitude came together from the town surrounding Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed. Then the high priest rose up. He and all who were with him, who belonged to the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. So, they arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. And when the chief priests in Jerusalem arrested and then handed over Jesus to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of the region, Matthew and Mark's gospels tell us Pilate knew they had done it because of envy.
This, of course, was exactly what Jesus had told his disciples to expect. He had told them plainly, if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. Just as the Jewish religious leaders stirred up the crowd to chant, crucify him. Crucify him. When Jesus was brought before them by Pilate, we saw some of the Jewish religious leaders from Pisidian Antioch and Iconium stir up the crowd in Lystra against Paul and stone him to the point where they thought he was dead.
As BJ reminded us a couple of weeks ago, part of becoming more like Jesus' includes the possibility of being persecuted like Jesus. And here in Thessalonica, we see a familiar scene unfolding as the Jewish religious leaders stir up a frenzied mob to attack Paul and Silas. The idea of the original text is that some men were bribed to stir up this trouble. The King James version calls the men they recruited lewd fellows of the Baser's sort. Clearly, these were not devout Jews sincerely concerned about potential blasphemy.
It says, attacking Jason's house, they searched for them to bring them out to the public assembly. Jason had apparently welcomed Paul and Silas into his home and allowed them to stay with him indefinitely. It also seems that his house was likely the location of the first church in Thessalonica, as Lydia was in Philippi. So, the frenzied mob head to Jason's house to try and get their hands on Paul and Silas. Verse six.
When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, shouting. These men speaking about Paul and Silas, who have turned the world upside down, have come here too, and Jason has welcomed them. Unable to find Paul and Silas, the mob physically drags Jason, the owner of the house, and some of the other brothers who were in the home to the Agora, the city's officials' ruling place, so to speak. And it must have been terrifying for chosen brothers. They charged Jason with showing hospitality to men, Paul and Silas, who have turned the world upside down.
What a wonderful charge to be levied against the followers of Jesus. And I say that because the truth is that everything in our world is upside down. Things are not the right way up. If you haven't noticed that, you're not paying very much attention. Our world calls evil good and good evil.
Creation that was made to know and worship and commune with God has rebelled against him. What the Gospel does, what the Holy Spirit does, what the word of God loves, is turn things right side up. And those who sincerely desire truth and light recognize it when they see it. But to those who love their sin and prefer the darkness, the Gospel sounds dangerous because it threatens to turn their world upside down. The Gospel declared to the Jews that the law had been fulfilled and a great high priest, Jesus the Messiah, had come to replace the Levitical priesthood.
The Gospel declared to the Gentiles that there was one God to be worshipped, not a pantheon, and that Caesar was no God. The Gospel declared to the Jews that God was also calling the Gentiles to be saved and that ethnicity was now irrelevant. Concerning salvation, the Gospel declared to the polytheistic Gentiles that there was only one way of salvation. The charge was not baseless. Indeed, it threatened to turn their world upside down.
This is why the Jewish religious leaders hated Jesus'. This is why the Romans hated Christians. This is why our culture hates the gospel in the church. And this is why the Bible tells us that when Jesus' returns to the earth, the armies of the nations will attempt to fire upon him. The gospel is insurrectionist.
Make no mistake about it. It preaches Christ as king over my life rather than myself, rather than the culture, rather than the state. And ultimately, the Gospel preaches Christ as king over the nations, too. And make no mistake, when Christ returns, he will turn the world upside down. The curse of sin will be lifted.
The earth will return to an Eden-like state. Orphanages will close because there will be no orphans, and justice will roll like a river. There will be an end to war and famine and sickness and disease when Jesus turns the world upside down. So come quickly, Lord Jesus. Would you make a note of this?
In our reality in reality, rather, our world is upside down and the Gospel turns it right side up. Our world is upside down, and the Gospel turns it right side up.
The gospel. The truth. The word of God has been rejected. For as loving as God has been preaching it, speaking it through men and women, there was a wicked king named Ahab who was king of Israel for a time. He was married to a somehow even more wicked pagan queen named Jezebel.
And under her incitement, Ahab led Israel down a path of pagan idolatry and the murdering of God's prophets. God sent a prophet named Elijah to tell Nadab that consequently, God would be sending a devastating drought upon Israel. When they finally meet face to face, Ahab greets Elijah with the words, is that you the one ruining Israel? You see, Ahab's perspective is so corrupted by sin that he thinks Elijah is the one causing problems for Israel. You don't think that maybe God might be mad at you, that you're killing all his prophets and leading his people to worship pagan gods?
But it's the same thing we see from the culture. We have blatantly, self-obvious, foolish political policies that create chaos, but we just lean into them further. The real problem is these people like Christian, who won't get on board with our agenda. When Judah's last king, Zedd Kaya, was on the throne, god judged Israel by having the Babylonians conquer Israel. And he sent his prophet Jeremiah to warn everyone about the coming judgment.
They didn't listen. They besieged Jerusalem, but then they temporarily had to go deal with a threat from Egypt. Zedekiah and his court start celebrating. We're saved, we're delivered. Everything's going to be fine.
But Jeremiah ruined the vibe by continuing to prophesy. This is still what the Lord says. Whoever stays in this city will die by the sword, famine, and plague. But whoever surrenders to the Chaldeans will live. He will retain his life like the spoils of war and will live.
This is what the Lord says, this city will most certainly be handed over to the King of Babylon's army and he will capture it. And of course, that's what happened. But when Jeremiah said that, a group of court officials got so angry that they dragged him before the king and said, this man ought to die because he is weakening the morale of the warriors who remain in this city and of all the people by speaking to them in this way. This man is not pursuing the welfare of this people, but their harm.
All this talk about sin, it's killing our vibe. It's bringing down morale. Stop it. Do you think maybe we should repent? No.
We should kill the guy who's pointing out our sin. That's what we should do. And their perspective was upside down. They weren't asking the most important question, were they? Is this true?
Is this true? When the prophet Amos was sent to the Northern Kingdom with a warning of impending doom, he was accused of conspiratorial treason and sent away with the words, go away. You see her. Flee to the land of Judah, earn your living and give your prophecies there, but don't come here and start turning our world upside down with your doom and gloom message. Like Elijah, Jeremiah, and Amos, Paul spoke the word of God, and it included speaking plainly about sin.
People didn't like that it threatened to turn their world upside down. Or should we say right side up? When Paul is later put on trial in Acts chapter 24, he will be accused by the Jewish religious leaders of being, and I quote, a plague and an agitator.
The problem is that the Gospel shatters the lies that we hold dear.
Because the Gospel pulls back the curtain, it pulls back the facade that we've so carefully built and so meticulously maintain. And the Gospel reveals undeniably that we are responsible for our sins. We have sinned against God. We are not victims of circumstance, victims of our parents, victims of our pointing, and basically just good people. No, we're wretched sinners who have rebelled against God, are at war with God, are trapped and completely enslaved by our sins, completely incapable of freeing ourselves, and on course for damnation because we have rejected God.
The Gospel shatters the lies that we hold dear. The path that leads to the glorious news that there is forgiveness, love and hope, and life and freedom through Jesus'. The path that leads there runs straight through the difficult truths that I just mentioned. There is no way to get to the good news without being confronted by the ugly truths first. And those ugly truths reveal that we have been living upside down and desperately need Christ to be our Savior and come into our lives and turn things right side up.
And so, my question is, will you let him do that in your life? Are you letting him do that in your life? It may well feel like your world is being turned upside down. But I promise, when you find your footing, you will realize that for the first time in your life, things are right side up. Write it down.
The Gospel shatters the lies we hold dear.
And that question is, if you've never known the Lord, will you let him come in and turn your life right side up? And if you do know him, what is your response when he comes in and says in this area, I want to turn your world upside down and make it right side up? What's your response when the word of the Lord comes to you? The mob continues and levels this charge against Paul and Silas, who were being harbored by Jason. They are all acting contrary to Caesar's decrees, saying there's another King - Jesus.
When the time comes, will anyone be able to make the same charge against you? I hope so. And if we're living faithfully for Jesus, the charge will be true. There's another King Jesus. You must know there is a time for disobeying laws and governments, and that time will come again very, very soon.
I urge you to make up your mind now that you are prepared to lose everything for Jesus your job, your friends, your reputation, our home, your freedom. Expect to lose everything to gain Christ. In Mark, chapter eight, we read of Jesus' calling the crowd along with his disciples. He said to them, if anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it.
But whoever loves his life because of me, and the Gospel will save it. For what does it benefit someone to gain the whole world and yet lose his life? What can anyone give in exchange for his life? For whoever is ashamed of me, in my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Since the temptation of Christ, the God of this age has been demanding that Christians bow to him rather than God.
But true disciples of Jesus refuse and boldly declare there is another King Jesus. It doesn't matter what the government decrees. Christ is king. It doesn't matter what scientists, doctors, or psychologists claim is consensus. Christ is king.
Verse eight. The crowd and city officials who heard these things were upset after taking a security bond from Jason and the others. They released them. And so, the settlement that they seem to reach is that the mob will not try to kill Paul and Silas if they leave town. And the security bond is money required of Jason and the other brothers that would be held and returned to them once Paul and Silas moved on from Thessalonica I'm going to wrap up with this again.
I just want to drill down on this point. When the truth of the gospel and the truth of God's word comes to you in your life, how do you respond? How are you responding to what God is speaking to you right now? When you learn something from the word of God and you realize that he is calling you to radically change something about the way you think or live, how do you respond? When God comes to turn your world right side up, do you receive Him as though he's doing that?
Or do you receive Him as though he's turning your world upside down? Do you receive the truth as trouble or treason?
Everything that God is working to do in your life is for your good. Everything.
Welcome the work of God in your life. Welcome it. Respond to the truth. Receive it like the treasure that it is, even if it hurts, even if it upends your whole life and whatever it costs you because I know this with absolute certainty - Jesus is worth it.
Jesus is worth it.
I'm going to pray in just a second. I'll ask the worship team to come up. But if you know that God is calling you for the first time to trade your life for his and you're ready to give Him your life, let Him be the Lord of your life and follow Him. Please come and tell me or BJ and interrupt us during worship. Come and talk to us after the service, but do not say, I'll put it off to the end of the service and then find someone to talk to and be like, oh, I guess there's not time.
This is the single most important thing you will ever do in your life is say yes to God. And if he is speaking to you now, I beg you to grasp in whatever small way you can the gravity of the fact that the God over everything who made heaven and earth is speaking to you personally in Port Coquitlam on Sunday, June 18, 2023. It's miraculous. Do not take it for granted. Do not take it for granted.
Let's pray. Father, I pray for anyone here who has not given their life to you. Lord, we love them, and you know that. And, Lord, we want so much for them to know the love and the life and the joy and the hope and the peace that is only found in you. And so, Father, I pray right now that You will overwhelm them with Your grace and with Your truth and with Your love, that You will enable them by Your spirit to see that You are not a danger to turn their world upside down, but you are a savior to turn their world right side up.
And so, Lord, give them the faith to say yes to you even right now in this moment and save them. We pray in Jesus' name. And Lord, I pray for... for all of us. Lord, we first just say thank you for our spirit that comes to us faithfully, is never discouraged, is never dissuaded, despite our stubbornness, despite our rebellions. You just come to us over and over and over, in grace and in kindness and compassion and in goodness and invite us to become more like Jesus.
You invite us to have our fingers pried off of the parts of our lives that we are desperate to retain control over, completely unaware that we are in bondage. And you just come to us over and over again and say, let me set you free, let me heal you, let me make you whole. Let me lead you to streams of living water. So, Father, forgive us for all the times that we have refused such gracious invitations and come to us again. We pray, Lord, and speak to us wherever we are blind, wherever we do not see, wherever we have been stubborn, wherever we have been rebellious.
I pray for everyone in this room, myself included. And Jesus, may we understand in a fresh way what it means that we belong to you. You are the king. You are the Lord of our lives. There is no one in competition with you.
That's what we desire, Lord, may it be in our lives as it is in heaven that you reign over us. Jesus, thank you for your love. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for your power. That where you call us to trust you, and we feel it is impossible, You have promised us yourself a power that does not come from our own resolve or the fount of our own desires or motivations, but from the infinite power of the loving God, the same power that raised Christ from the dead. And so, Jesus, we thank you in faith for that power, to say yes to whatever you want to do in us. Jesus, we love you so much. It's in your precious name we pray. Amen.