Jesus Still Turns Things Around Series

But they do!

The world is not a machine.

It’s a drama.

There is a living author-director named Jesus who can and does jump on the stage anytime he wants to and boggle the actors’ minds who think they know the script.

Jesus is constantly rewriting the scripts of our lives to conform us to his plans and purposes.

That’s one of the reasons we gather for worship each Lord’s Day.

It is to hear God's word and to be re-scripted for the following week!

The primary means of grace is the word of God, and each week, we come to the worship service so that Jesus Christ can execute his office as a prophet through the ministry of the word, revealing to us by his Word and Spirit the will of God for our salvation.

I want to encourage you this morning with the truth that Jesus is alive and that he still turns things around.

I want you to have an optimism about life because Jesus is alive.

Conclusion

Well, then, what should we do?

I could say many things about our plodding, unexpected ruts and routine, religious lives.

But let’s stick with the text and close with verse 31: “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.”

The atmosphere into which Jesus broke in, turned things around, and caused many people to turn to the Lord was one of godly fear and spiritual comfort.

They seem almost opposites: fear and comfort.

But they are not opposites.

The fear of the Lord is that sense of awe that the Lord Jesus Christ is infinitely holy and mighty and that he may not be trifled with.

He can break in with indescribable, heart-stopping suddenness and power whenever and wherever he pleases.

The fear of the Lord is what the disciples felt when Jesus stilled the storm.

The fear of the Lord is what the disciples felt when Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead.

You do not make light of Jesus.

You do not dally with him, take his name in jest, or treat him as marginal or negligible.

He is living, powerful, unstoppable, and infinitely holy and wills the glory of his Father with white-hot passion.

You humble yourself, as Peter says, under his mighty hand.

That was the atmosphere of the early church, where Jesus broke in with authoritative power and turned sickness and death around.

The other feature of this first-century church into which Jesus broke in with such power was that they were in the comfort of the Holy Spirit (v. 31).

The believers were secure in the knowledge that they were right with God.

The Holy Spirit comforted them with the truth that they were sons and daughters of the living God.

The Holy Spirit assured them of the love and care of God.

The best picture we can have of the Christian life, where Jesus breaks in with power to turn things around, is the image of flying in the eye of a hurricane.

We live in Florida. We are all familiar with hurricanes.

Hurricanes are immensely powerful.

But the eye of the hurricane is eerily still.

So when Luke says in verse 31 that the church walked in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, I picture them flying in the eye of a hurricane of divine power.