Here, We Upset The World!

I'm so excited about this word, okay?

If you have uh your Bibles and you're open to Acts chapter number 17, I want to read a few verses in your hearing.

Uh then I'll give you the title of the message and we'll go from there.

Now, I I need you to uh do a little demonstrative thing to help the message stick, and I'll give you that in a minute.

It's kind of corny.

Go with it.

Okay.

Um Acts chapter number 17, starting at the first verse.

Paul and Silas then traveled through the towns of Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessal Thessalonica, uh, where there was a Jewish synagogue, as was Paul's custom.

He went to the synagogue service, and for three Sabbaths in a row, he used the scriptures to reason with the people.

He explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead.

He said, This Jesus I'm telling you about is the Messiah.

Some of the Jews who listened were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with many God-fearing Greek men and quite a few prominent women.

Some of the Jews were jealous.

So they gathered some troublemakers from the marketplace to form a mob and start a riot.

They attacked the home of Jason, searching for Paul and Silas so they could drag them out to the crowd.

Not finding them there, they dragged out Jason and some of the other believers instead and took them before the city council.

Paul and Silas have caused trouble all over the world.

They shouted.

So you have to, they were shouting, so I had to shout.

Paul and Silas have caused trouble all over the world, and now they are here disturbing our city too.

And Jason had welcomed them into his home.

They are all guilty of treason against Caesar, for they profess allegiance to another king named Jesus.

The people of the city, as well as the city council, were thrown into turmoil by these reports.

So the officials forced Jason and the other believers to postbond, and then they released them.

I want you to pay close attention to the sixth verse.

Not finding them there, they dragged out Jason and some of the other believers instead and took them before the city council.

Paul and Silas have caused trouble all over the world.

Now they are here disturbing our city.

So I want to preach from the subject today.

Here, we upset the world.

Here we upset the world.

Fingers up.

Repeat after me.

Here we upset the world.

Again, a little bit louder.

Here we upset the world.

One more time, real loud, but hold on, hold on.

Get fancy with the finger.

If you got a little sauce in your, you know, if you want to roll your neck, doesn't matter.

If you want to get real fancy and start writing cursive in the air, I don't care.

But this time, make sure the children's ministry hears it and the parking lot ministry hears it.

You ready?

Here, we upset the word.

Bow your hands.

Let's pray over the word before we get started, okay?

God upset us.

Amen.

It's a good prayer.

Jesus has finished his work on the cross.

He has hung, bled out, and died for our sins.

He's in a tomb for three days.

The Holy Spirit on the third day raises a corpse from the dead.

He is seen by many, many witnesses, shows himself to his disciples who are to be his apostles.

One thing that we don't even spend nearly enough time talking about, we talk about uh the virgin birth, we talk about the miracles while he was on earth, we talk about his death, burial, and resurrection.

But the other part that I don't think a lot of us really talk about is the fact that he ascended.

Think about it.

He he he he hung bled and died, was raised from the dead, showed himself to everybody, and then he got on the cloud.

He just he just left, he just went up.

A physical body just and his disciples were just like, yeah, that's exactly what happened.

And then something revolutionary happens.

The proper title of the book of Acts is The Acts of the Holy Spirit through the apostles.

What has been done in the book of Acts and ever since is the Holy Spirit choosing people like you and I to come into a relationship with Jesus Christ, be filled with his spirit, and completely go out and testify that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.

That's why he's come into our life, that's why he has brought us to Jesus.

We start to see through Acts chapter number two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, on and on and on that the Holy Spirit starts doing some incredible things through ordinary men and women, taking ordinary men and women and doing extraordinary things through them just because they volunteered and said yes.

In chapter number 17, Paul and Silas are going through Amphipolis, they're going through uh Apollonia, through Tessaconica, and they're doing all of these incredible things or preaching the gospel.

They start rallying people up.

They're in the synagogues every day talking about Jesus and the work that he has done and how he wants to be in our lives, and people start actually receiving him in the synagogue.

They're going, My goodness, we've read the law, but we haven't heard a gospel like this.

This is absolutely amazing.

And this starts to stir up some of the local Jewish people that are there, and they get mad and they lay this claim to Paul and Silas and all of us and say, These men are causing trouble all over the world.

Now, here's the thing you gotta bear with me for a minute.

I'm a literalist.

So when people talk to me, it drives my friends and family crazy.

Because whatever they say, I take them literally.

I have to process and then try to figure out where that figuratively belongs because the way that I hear it is actual, uh, I'm just a literalist.

Anybody like me, you just literally hear, you take people you said it, and so you just like I didn't mean it that way.

And you're like, but that's what you said.

And I'm like, I hate you, right?

Well, I'm a literalist, and I know that Jesus said that this gospel is gonna go out to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth, but it hadn't actually got to the uttermost parts yet.

They had just reached like Amphipolis, it had just got to Apollonia, and they laid this claim.

These guys are causing trouble all over the world.

Really?

Literally all up that fast?

I mean, I know he said it was gonna happen, but it they these guys are amazing.

I see why he chose them.

I think it was prophetic.

That was a prophetic word.

What made it worse?

Not only are they doing it all over the world, now they are here disturbing our city too.

They actually made it here with this stuff.

It started in Jerusalem, it went to through Judea, it went to Samaria, it made it to Amphipolis, it went to Thessalonica, now it's in Scottsdale, now it's in Dallas, now it's in Fort Worth, now it's in Irving, now it's in Tennessee.

I cannot believe these guys are talking about this all over the world, they get mad, and they go inside the house of a dude named Jason.

It's just hilarious.

If you read the Bible from the book of Genesis and you read all of these names, you get to a regular name like Jason, and you just smile.

It's not Abimelech, it's not a holyab, it's not Jethro, it's not Methuselah, it's a random dude in the Bible named Jason.

All the Jasons in here should make some noise.

Jason made it to the building.

He led this claim that these guys have come and caused trouble all over the world.

That word in Greek literally means upset.

And this is the assignment that Jesus gave to each and every one of his believers.

That we, as his sons and daughters, would literally upset the world with the message, hope, and love of Jesus Christ.

By definition, upset means to overturn, to destroy the power of, to overthrow, to defeat, to vanquish, to disturb or derange completely, put out of order, throw into disorder, to defeat or overthrow an appointment that is considered to be more formidable as in war, politics, or sports.

See, a lot of people think that if you are upsetting someone, then you must be making them angry, you must be making them mad.

But I believe that everybody in here that has come into a relationship with Jesus Christ has done so because you've had your world upset by him.

That he has literally come into your life and turned the whole thing upside down, or as the kingdom would like to say, right side up.

This is our mandate to first have it done to us so we can do it to others.

So there's three points that I want you to write down to this message.

Uh, three things you have to have in order to upset the world.

Three things that you have to have in order to upset the world.

Point number one, you must be upset first.

In order to upset the world, you must be upset first.

Now, there's some scripture references that are gonna jump on the screen.

I'm just gonna paraphrase the stories for you.

I don't have time to read all the scriptures, but if you're a nerd like me or a Berean like me, you'll go back and you'll read these things to see that they are there.

In Acts chapter number nine, verse one through 22, uh, we see this happen with a guy named Saul.

Saul is so angry at people that believe that Jesus is Lord that he is literally knocking door to door like a salesman to see if he can find someone that believes in Jesus so he could have them locked up and incarcerated.

In order uh to upset the world, you must be upset first.

And one thing that Jesus loves to upset is a spirit of religion.

He loves to upset the spirit of religion.

He sees this guy Saul.

Saul is so angry uh with people that that are after Jesus Christ that he wants them locked up, persecuted, and and and prosecuted.

And if he has a chance to vote, he wants the death penalty for these people.

And Jesus decides to have an encounter with Paul himself, and he goes, Saul, who are you fighting against?

You're not fighting against them, you're actually fighting against me.

Scripture goes on to say that the man named Ananias comes by his house and lays hands on him.

Saul is filled with the Spirit of God, and not like 48 hours later, not two years later, when he completed uh uh a bachelor's degree in theology, a master's in divinity, uh a doctorate uh in theology.

No, immediately after having that experience, he got up and started preaching that Jesus is Lord.

I don't know about you, but there's some people that feel apprehensive to tell their testimony because they don't have an education or they haven't gone to Bible school.

Let me tell you something.

When the Holy Spirit reveals Jesus, that is all the proof you need to open up your mouth and declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God.

He loves to disrupt the spirit of religion.

He just looks for it, and if you if you get in his way, if you try to block people from meeting Jesus with all the rules and regulations, you might just wind up meeting him face to face.

He might just show up like, hey, stop.

Another thing you'll find is in the book of Luke, chapter number five, verses one through eleven, he loves to disrupt the spirit of religion, but equally he loves to disrupt and upset people who have a spirit of independence.

In Luke chapter number five, you'll find a story of Peter washing his nets, Jesus coming down to the shore and asking Peter, hey Peter, can I can I use your boat?

He's like, Yeah, man, you can use it.

I've already done my work for the night, and so it's in the morning, it's daytime.

Go ahead and use my boat.

And Jesus does just that.

He steps in the boat, pushes off a little bit, and he preaches this message.

When he gets done, he does something really, really interesting.

He says, Um, hey guys, let's go out for a catch.

And they're kind of like see this guy?

Rabbi dude.

He's hilarious.

Show up to my job trying to tell me what to do.

I let him use my boat.

I mean, it's the only platform he's getting.

I don't see what else he wants to do.

And then he wants to go out now.

Does he even does he even know what fishing's about?

Does he know how this lake works?

We go out at night because the fish all come to the shallow.

And we throw out our net because the fish can't see it at night.

This guy.

This guy was quite in broad daylight.

To the deep end.

I think a lot of us do that with different aspects of our life that we want to keep from God.

There's a little bit of an independent spirit that rises up in us.

Especially when we've accomplished some stuff, we run a business, we run an organization, we might be the regional manager of something, and the Holy Spirit wants to give us a nudge.

I want you to do this.

Come on, man.

I know what I'm doing here.

I've been running the company for 20 years, and now you're trying to act act like I don't know what I'm doing, and he's like, Yeah, you don't.

Because when you give your life to Jesus Christ, your life doesn't just belong to him.

So does your business.

So does your finances.

Here's what happened in the story.

Go back and read it, it's delicious.

They decide to go.

They go out in the daytime to the deep.

They throw the net.

And I know a couple of guys on the boat have to be thinking to myself.

You'll learn.

We're not gonna catch anything.

And they go out and they throw that net in the deep, and the fish.

The fish are dumb, they're just not that dumb.

They're looking at the net.

Nemo turns around, calls all of his friends out of school.

Some of y'all, y'all got it, y'all got it.

And all of them swim up into the net.

So many fish swam into the net that the net started to break.

They had to call their friends.

And let me tell you what this produced in Peter.

Peter being overwhelmed with God's blessing.

Not judgment, but his blessing.

It's with loving kindness that God draws people.

Being overwhelmed with his blessing, he drops to his knees.

Oh Jesus.

Oh Lord, I'm so sorry.

We never got this many fish in our life.

You're real.

You just upset me.

I will never question you again.

I wonder what would happen if that spirit of independence was broken to the point that we give God permission into areas of our lives that we feel like we don't want to trust Him.

Point number two, write this down.

Get used to upsetting people.

If you're gonna upset the world, you must be upset first.

And if you are upset, get used to upsetting other people.

Acts chapter number 10, verse 38 says something absolutely amazing.

And you know, if you're a nerd and you got a book out, underline that.

And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

Can I can I share something with you?

I grew up in uh Pentecostal charismatic churches, and in pre Pentecostal charismatic churches, uh people are always talking about the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit.

They want to see miracles done and they want to see all of the uh all of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in full manifestation.

Uh uh, but I'm a very sequential person, and Paul wrote something in a sequence that I just think is amazing.

Um, he was just nice, and we know that Jesus was was was filled with the Holy Spirit and with power, and he went around doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil.

You know how you can start upsetting people's world?

Just do good stuff.

If you were just nice, that could have a profound effect on someone's life as much as raising somebody from the dead.

He just went around doing good.

Do you know his first miracle was just something good?

He just showed up to a wedding.

That's just a nice guy.

Just rose.

This is Jesus.

We've been waiting on him since Genesis 3:15.

Genesis 3:15

The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent and he shall bruise his heel.

We're waiting for Jesus.

4,000 years.

We're waiting for Jesus.

Oh, Mary's finally pregnant.

Oh, and we're waiting again for her to give birth.

Oh, Jesus is born.

Now we gotta wait 30 years till he starts his early earthly ministry.

He gets baptized in.

Oh, no, he has to go to a desert.

Comes out of the desert.

Oh, Jesus, you're finally gonna do something.

Where are you going?

A wedding.

You don't want to start the crusade, you don't want to get the tin out, start healing people.

You only got three years of your earthly ministry.

No, I'm gonna just go to my cousin's wedding real quick.

Shows up to a wedding, they run out of wine.

What does Jesus do?

Turn up.

He doesn't like take like empty bottles of wine and then fill it up.

He actually takes huge water pots that were used for washing the hands and feet of the people that were coming to the wedding.

He filled those up with so much wine, so much good tasting wine, that the headmaster had to say, You save the best for last.

He loves doing good stuff.

I'll give you two examples of it in scripture.

First, in Matthew chapter number eight, verses 28 through 34, he comes to uh the other side of the sea, and he comes out, he sees these two demoniacs that are possessed with demons.

He decides to do something about it.

What he does is absolutely amazing.

He frees them from the bondage that they were in.

The demons that were possessing these men jump out of the men, go into some pigs, and the pigs run into a lake and they drown.

The whole town comes out and they're amazed at what Jesus does.

They're like, oh my goodness, I can't believe you did that.

All those guys that were terrifying us and running along the countryside, they've Been healed, but we want you to leave.

Cause we like bacon.

And you just sent all of that swimming.

That's not usually the way we marinate our pork.

Only eight of y'all got that one.

Get used to upsetting other people, and here's what I want you to know: some people don't want to be upset.

Even when God has done something amazing in their lives, they would rather not have their life turned upside down if it means they're going to be inconvenienced.

Book of John, chapter number four, verses one through thirty.

It's a story of Jesus deciding to go through Samaria, stopping at a well, waiting for a woman to arrive who had been in some relational trouble.

Jesus shows up, they start off talking about water, but quickly the conversation starts to lead to something a little bit deeper.

Jesus makes this very, very unique reference by saying, if you knew the type of water that I wanted to give you, you would take it because you'll never thirst again.

You'll never have to come here to this world again.

And she's like, Well, are you the sparkless man?

This is amazing.

Are you the arrowhead man?

Do you work for Aquafina?

That would be fantastic.

If you could set up, you know, indoor plumbing in my house, I never have to come here again.

That would be wonderful.

And he goes, I really love Jesus.

Because Jesus, Jesus is, is, is, like, he doesn't really care about your feelings when it comes to him delivering truth.

He says, like, he drops a bomb.

It's like, like, how did you even get on this?

He says, uh, yeah, go get your husband.

And she's like, not married.

And then he was like, that's right, you're not married.

You've been married five times, and the guy you're living with right now is not your husband.

Booyah, Jesus?

That is what what really?

Right now?

We're talking about water, you're gonna bust her out like that in front of everybody?

What is going on?

And she's like, Are you mm-hmm?

Are you a prophet?

Then they start talking about religion.

Here's what happens.

She runs back to Samaria and she tells everybody in the city, in the same way, the other people, after the demoniacs got freed, ran back to the city.

She does the same thing they did, and they didn't want to receive it.

But when she runs back to Samaria, she goes, You gotta come see a man.

He told us, he just told me everything about myself.

And I didn't even, I don't even know how he knows it, but he knows it.

And all the people came and they heard him speak, and something quite the opposite of what happened in Matthew 8 happens in John chapter number 4.

They're like, hey, could you stay here?

Could you stay here for a couple of days and like really break down all of this to us?

And he stays for a couple of days, and so many people became believers in Jesus Christ because some people want to be upset.

See, it's not up to us to decide who wants to be upset or who doesn't.

It's just our assignment to upset them.

Again, I'm not talking about making someone mad.

I'm talking about upsetting them, turning them upside down.

You can do stuff to just disrupt people in a very practical way that makes them think to themselves, I have no idea what's going on here.

One quick example of that is uh I was in a grocery store once and I've learned how to really uh I've mastered blessing people at the checkout line in a grocery store.

Um whether it's the slide or the chip, I got it down packed now.

So what I do, I get my stuff, boop, boop, boop, boop, and I put the chip in, take it out.

Y'all are like, that's exactly what the sound is.

Um then I move over, and whether I have two items or ten items, I act like I'm like double checking it.

Like I don't know, I just saw the lady put everything in the bag.

And I'm like, mm-mm, do I?

And while the next person, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, and right when they're about to pay, they say, Hey, it's gonna be this much.

I slide back over and stick my card and just look at them.

It's just this awkward look I gave them when I'm like, why did you do that?

And I'm like, ha! For no reason at all.

Aren't you upset?

One time I did it in California, and it was a very well-to-do area of California.

Can I just say this?

Sometimes people that are well off, they're the hardest people to bless.

This is so ridiculous.

I did the move.

Huh, yeah, and I did it.

And and then I looked at her.

She's like, what are you doing?

And I was like, um, just blessing you.

She's like, I don't need this blessing.

I was like, wait a minute, lady, are we?

What?

She's like, I really don't need this blessing.

You could have, I don't need this.

You could have done this for somebody else who really needed it.

And I said, are we really gonna argue right now about me blessing you with some groceries?

She was like, fine.

So I got my bags and I walked out.

As soon as I got outside, I looked up and I was like, Jesus, I didn't like the way that went down.

Why'd you leave me to bless her?

I only want to bless people that like it.

Why she?

And it was almost like he crept to the edge of his seat next to his dad and leaned over and said, now you know how I feel.

I didn't go to the cross because I knew you would come to me.

I went to the cross that you might.

Point number three.

Get others to upset people.

It's pretty practical, right?

Point number one, you must be upset first.

Point number two, get used to upsetting people.

Point number three, get others to upset people too.

Here's what it says in Matthew chapter number 28, verse number 16.

Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some of them doubted.

Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this.

I'm with you always, even to the end of the age.

You've heard the phrase, hurt people, hurt people.

You've heard the phrase free people, free people.

Let me add one upset people, upset people.

You can't help it.

When you've had your life overturned, it's hard to act like nothing happened to you.

You've never met anyone who hit the lottery like, yep, that happened.

Yeah.

I won 300 million.

Got it in my bank right now.

Even after taxes, I still got about 178 million.

Feel good about my life.

No, when they're overturned, there's some expression that comes along with that.

2 Timothy, my namesake, 2, verse 2, says this.

You have heard me teach things that I have that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses.

Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.

You want to know why I'm teaching this today?

Because I feel like you're trustworthy people that can pass it on to others.

My natural birthday is Monday, June 26th.

I'll be 42 years old.

But my spiritual birthday is January 14th, 1996.

21 years old.

And on that day, I came into a church service, sat in the back.

I was a PK, so I knew how the service was gonna go.

Something was different on this day.

The Holy Spirit started to witness to my spirit that Jesus Christ was alive.

It didn't matter that at the age of eight years old I had been molested.

Or at the age of twelve that I had been exposed to pornography.

By the time that I was 19, that I was a full-blown porn.

The most upsetting thing that could ever happen to me was not the molestation.

Nor was it the addiction.

It was the overwhelming love of Jesus Christ.

What area of your life might he want to upset?

You may be here and you've never given your life to Jesus Christ, and you know something now that you didn't know before you walked in there.

Maybe, maybe you've had these questions, but right now, the question that's being answered is that Jesus Christ is Lord.

He's the way, the truth, and the life.

You may be in here and you may already have a relationship with Jesus.

But maybe there's a spot that you haven't allowed him to upset.

Maybe there is a secret compartment in your heart that you haven't let him overturn.

Let him in today.

Let him do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

I can guarantee you, living an upsight life is one of the most amazing opportunities that we have as believers.

I feel like you can have that today.

In a moment, we're gonna sing one more song.

During that time, we're gonna all stand.

We're gonna have Altar Ministry team at the front.

But if you need prayer for any reason, you don't have to be a member of Gateway Church to come for prayer.

So, Holy Spirit, I pray that you would draw every person that needs prayer in Jesus' name.

Amen.