So much for being here with us a second into work the organization called Reach and we partnered with them on all about hundreds of other churches and we just checking in on Facebook we're able to all put our resources together and to Good for those across the world both of us and as we get how does that work? And this is how Reach works a foundry alongside over thousands or just we pay a pretty minimal amount of months into the Reach Tool and with all that money combined together we're able to do amazing things this month we are providing water well in Haiti It's amazing thing to cost you just that that Facebook clip and cost me a hundred very normal money I don't money but together we're able to do great with what we have access to so check it on Facebook I don't want you to think about something. I want you to think about what's your favorite passage of scripture or maybe one other your favorite passage of scripture This morning, I don't be talking about one of mine and it's one of my favorites because I was called this so much As a child, but who here when you were a little kid was considered to be good Who's a good kid? Okay, who's a troublemaker?
I was really good at getting in trouble. I'm kind of nervous about this. So we don't know what this my dad's a bad disaster Hey, he was the church down in Alexandria I've been all the years I've been here for 15 years. I've never actually done anything in my death Sure, I got invited to go down to this next month of weeks I have a senior adult lunch on Thursday So let's get you to have to come share and you can tell you all the first two words that I'm a speak to that commercial Thursday morning.
I'm sorry I'm sorry Then really just kind of gets in there. They don't have any kind of trouble that I like to get into. We're gonna talk about troublemakers today But my mom decided when you're shooting to make my Christmas outfit Guys, I know right now. You need your mom make your clothes when you're a kid Okay, always come shoot your razor hand, right?
You know like my sister my mommy got sisters clothes. You can slot people dressed as they have a nuts on them That was cute. I mean like little girls even where he's like cute little little boys. There's nothing you can do hand make clothes It's gonna be two points My mom I'm Mario James one time and she was really proud of him I was proud of the one school one day.
Well, mom I go to tell me what all she did with modified boxers You're pattern is my boy, you're gonna work it So I'm on it one year. This is not one year Christmas Okay, so there you go. So what year for Christmas mom make me this is the bad part She doesn't have a picture of the bad one. So you know the The bow tie and the Christmas tree on what you don't see is she made me a pair of green Well, or Sunday school and we can have Also when we read my picture, I'll tell you what this little picture she said.
I looked just like a So I said I take matters in my own hands And I was like hi everybody's these dirty velvet shorts This is bender to bow tie ever again. I'm interested in having so I came on my church and I got here my mom's sew with scissors I cut the spenders past I cut a corner off the bow tie and I cut the knees out of the trees I don't care How do you all grow peers do not leave? You know repairs In my family my best belt had a nickname was called the weather Express And take what the weather Express and train tracks that day I'm a six years old got points where dad had me my one hand and I'm running in circles Mom what do you think I did? Oh?
What's it since she made me sure so originally she had a billion sixes shorts She also had a billion sixes fenders and bow tie I had to wear that belt You know the church every September to December or two years with padding trouble Make it I was good at it in trouble. We're talking to a maker said we're talking about what that looks like It may be a little different level like that. We're gonna turn to look at 17-18 all and we're looking at the story of trouble making we're totally got him and what trouble making us do this now So actually 17 we're gonna reverse this one for a So it says all the silence and traffic to the towns and Exquibilist and polyan became the seslinico was a true show as the false custom He went to the synagogue service with the three satin a row uses your future reason He explained the prophecies in terms of a sigh of suffering rise to the dead He said this Jesus I'm telling you about the other Messiah some of the Jews were to listen We're explaining join all the silence on the God here in Greek men quite a common good But some of the Jews were jealous so they gathered to trouble makers who more to place the born a mile to start right The attacks at home Jason searching for Paul and Silas they can drag into the crowd and not find there the drag up Jason Is on the other believers instead to perform as an opposite council Paul and Silas have all struggled all over the world they show and now there's you're disturbing our city too and Jason is welcome It is home their guilty treasonous user they profess religious to other king than Jesus the people of the city as well as the city council We're thrown into turmoil by these Excuse Paul of calling He told me one time he said his kids around told you not to fall around they're little against it Let's get your father be around I Paul Paul is a big picture here There's a bigger trouble making picture is going on if we read back in the previous chapter and act after 16 so Paul is from Israel Palestine area and his kind of base of operations in any on which is North of modern day But he would go these missionary charters and he would travel them at a terrain in Lisa He was on take it going over into Europe But I got a vision one I so his missionary journey took him first we read this in action 16 to a city called Silas I'm looking at the New Testament called Philippians all letter to the church in Philippi while Paul was in there He met a man that had in his employees But she was she was a slave though a girl who was possessed by a demon He would use her to predict the future people go pay money and have her predict the future Well, Paul med interacted with this girl and he exercised to see that he healed her So this man source of income was gone. He calls quite discouraged You might as well came and took her terms of income away from you.
You'd be rather bad, wouldn't you? So Paul had to get out of Silas I'll stop you got to trouble head leave He comes to the Sesla Nica and you see he's only those continent I got this town He's only those continent for a month already the word has gotten out about him about The word of the way the trouble he was causing from trouble a little bit We read this the way here to find out that he has hope so while up they go in higher professional trouble I imagine if you know how to go further professional trouble like ten after the morning I said go higher some trouble way go higher some rioters they come in and they call the problems Later on people actually find out that Paul goes up into another city and this whole city's industry is based off They make idols for the entire region when Paul goes and preaches there The entire town throws all their I will making supplies into a fire The whole economic reality of region is going to see Paul is going to come in And Paul is calling us to be a Because this is what's going on here. I want to read acts chapter 1716 again I'm gonna see three translations right behind me. We see three versions of and a new It's pretty much a bridge earlier.
I'm finding they're they back out Jason So the other believers instead and took the most of the city cats and fall inside was the bus trouble all over the world Now they're here disturbing our city to let's read this is your vice-vater. It's a little more complicated translation This was there, but they could not find the drag Jason So the leaders before the city is already shouting these people who have been turning the world upside down have come here awesome Last message is more of a real world translation So says they broke it Jason's house and he can all its I was from there They couldn't find him the collar Jason sprints that dragged me from city father jelly He started like these people are out to destroy the world and now they've shown up on our door step attacking every scene We hold you think about that this this word trouble is a little more intense than we might have thought right? Now if you're wanting to research your good place is confusing you're trying to learn more What these I reckon folks a lot of you a lot of you for translations read this in a couple different ways I'm asking what we see that one word Trouble is found those different ways. I love when you're gonna say I'm turning our world upside down This is where trouble is the only place the entire Mission there the thing about that the only time this is where this word is using the entire New Testament It means turning the world upside down shaking up everything upsetting the stability of a person upsetting the stability of a group It's kind of puts Paul as a troublemaker Into a little bit better of a light now doesn't it?
We've seen him go into town after town after town and by simply speaking the words of Jesus He's causing so many things to happen this most definitely upsetting the stability of these areas upsetting the stability these places follow the troublemaker He tells us to follow him and follow his example This he speaks to gospel Jesus to follow if we want to follow Jesus to follow Paul well Paul's a troublemaker What does that turn us into think about this idea of being a troublemaker John Earlier on in Jesus is in a situation with people the Pharisees They even say that the whole world has gone after Jesus is after he rose Lazarus from the dead and they realize like it's lost here There's no way we can take care of this because everyone in Jerusalem is hanging on every word Jesus is saying they've all gone after him What we realize our world is being changed our lives are being changed our story is being rewritten the things that we thought were normal and stable Or no longer normal and stable the things that we thought we could depend on because we can control or not dependable are controllable anymore Our world and our story has changed think about how this message affects people And especially how this message affects people who have been negatively infected by an idea of a stable condition The demon possessed a girl that Paul healed who's being held as a slave For the economic benefit of somebody else. I would say that her world was being affected by somebody else's stable condition That Paul's troublemaking they are made her life for better But think about this this troublemaking because if God is calling us to follow Jesus God is us is calling us to be troublemakers and not in the sense we're cutting up our velvet pants But in a couple different ways because the first thing is this we need Jesus to cause trouble in our own hearts That's the first place. That's the first step. We need Jesus to cause trouble This is where we need to be clear about what we are what we have in our life It's keeping us from seeing more of Jesus What are we clinging to in our life instead of clinging to Jesus?
And some of these things might be good because remember this this whole this whole thing is about stable conditions and some of us We fight for stability in our lives a lot of you I can tell you as of this morning 73 of you took the survey that we sent out about margin about our sermon series starting next week And a lot of that's about these are these are the things that I have to have in my life These are the things that worry me these are the things I believe have to be in place for my life to be stable for my family's welfare To be stable for what we consider to be good and right to be stable But sometimes we put things that are the right things ahead of Jesus We thought we have to have those sometimes troublemaking doesn't necessarily mean the bad things sometimes it means we have to Reinvestigate the good things or we maybe need to reinvestigate our relationship with the good things See idolatry is about finding false stability It's about allowing things to create stability in our lives instead of allowing Jesus to create stability in our lives We invite Jesus to come in and cause trouble in our hearts. It means we're asking ourselves What am I allowing to create false stability in my life right now? What does it mean for me to let Jesus take over and to control and provide the stability in that part of my life? We'll be going much more than that over the next few weeks Our prayer for that in that situation though is us saying to Jesus I need you to turn my world upside down.
I need you to turn my life upside down And sometimes we think that that means that we're inviting chaos into our lives. It's kind of a scary prayer You're telling me to pray to Jesus to make my life crazier. It doesn't need to be any crazier It's crazy enough on its own But no, this is us coming in saying Jesus. I need you to help me find what true stability actually looks like The second piece is that we need to see where Jesus is causing trouble now There's a reason that all the people were freaking out so much by what Paul was doing Hey, any of you all fans of Dan Carlin's podcast hardcore history, okay?
Did any all listen to the last episode? So okay? He does like three episodes a year and like six hours long It's all about history and I listened to six hours of Dan Carlin last week But it was about Caesar and his conquest of Gaul And I love his podcast He talks about Rome so much because there's so many things that are going on in the New Testament that we don't understand We don't understand Roman one of the things is a huge huge piece of what Paul talks about the thing called the pax Romana the Roman Peace and the fact that there's 250 300 years of peace in Rome which had never happened before and the people believe that peace was caused by the gods favor and The way that they kept in the good favor of the gods was to cause stability and civility to happen So so many the places where we kind of don't know what to do with Paul To start talking about the relationships between men and women and how men and women should be behaving We get kind of frustrated and see that what Paul's talking about is he's in called the household codes that are written because this is if you're a good citizen You do all of these things because if you break this one rule if you break this one law You might send chaos into your house and you send chaos into your neighborhood If you send chaos in your neighborhood Just in your town and your city and the Empire and the next thing you know the whole world will be a war Like that sounds ludicrous to me If mare's not gonna get an argument over something of the house like it's in the entire world in the war It sounds kind of silly that's you might think it can like that's the viewpoint that these people had like every single thing Paul was doing It was upsetting the stability of their area these people believe that he could genuinely be causing the entire world to go into chaos and Thessalonica and the city where where Paul gets called the troublemaker They believed themselves to be the second Rome in fact a hundred years before that when there's a civil war all the Romans And it came to Thessalonica to live like these people right now. We've got to be stable We've got to have everything perfect doesn't need to change and he's to say exactly the same don't mess with anything And the Jewish people go into these city leaders and and bring these rebel rousers in and try to get Paul thrown out was their Participation and this idolatry of them saying you know what we'll believe in this this whole way that you believe that God's work If it means you'll come to our side and get this man thrown out of town So when we pray and ask to see where is Jesus causing trouble in our town It's us saying how do we align ourselves with your mission here on this earth?
How do we align ourselves with what you are doing? We've talked about these things called the four questions that found me for a long time We've used these is just places for us to pray and look for how Jesus is active and involved in our community We'll just go through real quick They're simple but four things if Jesus since Jesus is here in our neighborhood The first one is this what would Jesus be passionate about? Second what issues would he care about? Third thing what would Jesus spend his time in our neighborhood?
The last one is this how would Jesus reach people? This is just an exercise of us looking at the places where Jesus is causing trouble looking at places where Jesus is active and involved in Transforming our community so pray Jesus where are you causing trouble right now? And the last thing is this how does our own world need to be turned upside down? What are the markers of false stability that our culture has that our world has now?
You know we might not be going like turning back tearing down silver smith factories, but we realize there are things that we depend on more than Jesus What I find so often and in place like this in scripture and trying to apply it into my life now And the lives of those around us is that it seems significantly less severe in our world to us But it becomes significantly more private as well Where are the places? Their markers are false stability also. What does it mean for us to call out? Things as falsely stable as idolatrous while simultaneously choosing to live in that world because this is where Jesus placed us This is these are questions that that we ask when we're trying to follow Jesus super super deep Or we can even flip it around say what does it look like for the church and for the people who make up the church?
To lift up what true stability looks like in the middle of our own chaos where we have in our life What is our witness? What is our conversations with our friends look like? What does it look like for the people we work around who might know exactly what's going on in our lives right now to see us Cleaning to something that truly is stable. So we sang in the last song Christ our cornerstone What does it look like for us to live a witness of cornerstone around us and open and public?
We need trouble in our lives. We need you to be causing trouble But we also need to be seeing the places where Jesus is changing and transforming things in our world around us We need Jesus to make trouble in our hearts So we can then go out and cause trouble on our own You know I have to apologize a lot for the trouble I caused when I was a little kid and for trouble I caused when I was in middle school and for trouble I caused when I was in high school the trouble I caused trouble I was telling my earlier I got thrown out of rotary a few years ago That's a different story completely if I'm lying I'm done There's a different kind of trouble That I believe Jesus is calling us into now Let's pray Jesus help us to see what it means to anchor ourselves to true stability To plan ourselves firmly on ground Because we're planted firmly in you Help us to know what trust looks like help us know what faithfulness looks like Jesus we invite you to come into our own hearts and to upend them to help us all clearly understand Where we have trusted on falsibility Praying for you to come and heal us of this to heal us of the things that hurt us the most that that make us want to Say quiet that make us want to trust things that are ultimately not trustworthy and Jesus says you do these works in our heart Help us realize you're also calling us to a much greater purpose To a life that's lived in public with you and a life that's lived in the very places that you have planted each of us So we can see that that that that that area around we are every day not as a place of chaos But as a place of purpose of a mission field you've uniquely put each of us Help us to cling to you the true cornerstone As you're gonna pray amen