Turning Our World Right-Side Up
by David K. Bernard
2025 · The Pentecostals of Alexandria, Alexandria, Louisiana
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Acts 17:5-6, Acts 18, Acts 19, Zechariah 7:9-10

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--turning-our-world-right-side-up
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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hallelujah oh what a great spirit of worship praise God what a wonderful presence of the Lord a spirit of worship amen remain standing for a moment as I go to acts 17 it's always a privilege to speak it because of the times and I never take it for granted so thank you Pastor Anthony Mangan and of course Pastor Gentry Pastor Andrew Pastor Ryan and everybody else that I should be naming right now all the staff everybody that makes Not only just the mechanics or the logistics but the spiritual atmosphere it takes prayer fasting worship long before we ever show up we just show up in the middle of it but we get to reap the benefits praise the Lord so I'm reading from acts 17 it's the story The First Missionary trip to Asia Paul and Silas are preaching in thessalonica and they caused a riot Pentecostal preachers caused a riot so acts 17 verse 5 and verse 6 I'm going to read the new King James but the Jews who are not persuaded Ed being 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 that's Paul and Silas 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 so I don't really accept the characterization I'm preaching turning our world right side up turning our world right side up you may be seated so these Apostolic preachers caused a riot you know the gospel does disrupt people's beliefs it does disrupt people's Lifestyles it's an attractive amazing wonderful gospel but it does rub some people the wrong way you can't just hear the gospel and remain unchanged you're either going to accept it and move forward or you're going to reject it and move backwards that's the way it is with truth you ever wonder why you're having a great Revival in your local church new people are coming to the Lord and supposedly established people go the opposite direction it's because nobody can stay unchanged in the presence of the Lord when the Lord says move forward you got to move forward and

if you don't don't move forward you don't stay in neutral you move backward and even a service like this when the Lord is speaking we've got to hear what God is saying and no matter how experienced in Ministry we are we've got to Humble ourselves and say Lord what do you have for me and if we don't reach out for what God has for us we don't stay the same we start losing where we are so Paul and Silas were accused of turning the world upside down if you read the text keep reading the main problem was they were preaching another King instead of Caesar they were preaching Jesus is Lord so they were disrupting the social scene they were disrupting the political scene and you know I'm thinking here we're seeing significant change in the US and also Canada I believe God is giving us a window of opportunity there's an open statement I've been listening in to the rhetoric restoring common sense is one of the themes restoring Traditional Values people that our nation has stood for and it's happening in the US it's even happening in Canada something is happening I say

a window of opportunity because I don't think we can be complacent but right now there is an opportunity for Religious Freedom and I believe there's an openness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ so we've got to step right through that Open Door we've got to move fast right now this may be the climactic opportunity before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ I don't know but something tells me it's just not open-ended There's an opportunity but we have a chance to impact our world we have a chance to impact our city it's time to to step out by faith and start turning some cities right side up for the Lord Jesus Christ now let me just be clear I don't think we should identify as a church with any candidate or party because all are flawed and sooner or later some are going to say and do something we can't accept and we shouldn't feel compelled to defend everything we have to keep enough distance we can pray we can vote we can participate but as a church and as a preacher we've got to keep enough distance so we can speak with moral Clarity

on any point that's our job but I do believe what happens in the world does have an impact there's a a flow in the spirit I believe and we have to discern the times we're not really going to turn the world upside down but we can turn the world world right side up and with the theme of this conference it starts with us personally and with our families if we can start turning ourselves right side up if we can start turning our relationships right side up if we can start turning the relationships among fellow ministers and ministerial ethics right side up then we can go back to the church and turn the church right side up and the church can turn the community right side up we can have an impact on our city on our community on our neighborhood God is helping us to make an impact in our world what I see in thessalonica is everybody in the city realized something happened everybody in the city was touched if nobody we if we're having great Revival and nobody in our own Community knows who we are we're missing something somehow there must be

enough disruption that people know those are the Pentecostals those are the people that believe Miracles they they may be a little crazy they may a little be a little strange but they stand up for something they're standing for moral values they're standing for common sense and most of all if you want to be healed go to that church if you want to be delivered go to that church if you want your marriage set straight go to that church I remember years ago when I was a pastor man called left a something on the answer machine my son is demon possessed but I heard that you your church knows how to deal with that would you come send somebody would you come and deliver my son so I sent my youth pastor and my youth pastor and my son I wanted to get a report and uh I told them tell them to come to church well long story short the whole family end coming to church including that son and he eventually received the Holy Ghost praise God but what the man told me he said I called as many church as I could and

nobody would return the call or nobody if I talked to him in person nobody would commit to coming I guess it was a little bit intimidated my son is deem obsess could you please come cast The Devil out he said nobody in town would respond you're the only church that answered and said yes we'll come out I had another couple come they were two different denominations they came for marital counseling just out of the blue they came to our church and I said why do you come and one name well I we are I'm a member of certain Church the other said I'm member of certain church we can't agree our marriage is in trouble but we heard the Pentecostals believe in miracles so we're coming for help I said well you've come to the right place and I said the answer is you need to start by going to the same church church and let me propose a compromise since you like church a and you like church B why don't you come to church C the Pentecostal Church they did and they both received the Holy Ghost but the point is people in

the community I had someone come from a neighboring charismatic church he showed up and he said they they they believe in the Holy Ghost but they don't really have an opportunity to receive the spirit so I kept saying when can I be filled with the Holy Spirit they said well go down to that new life church you can receive the Holy Ghost there then you can come back I said okay let's go ahead and receive the Holy Ghost but there's no need to go back praise God the church needs to have a reputation in the community we're out there trying to turn the world upside out that's upside down right side up praise God so last year I preached from acts 18 so if you look at some of those key passages so acts 17 they turned the world upside down that's from the eyes of the world so since the world's looking at it wrong that means they were turning the world up right side up so you look at the next chapter one of the key stories Corinth I preached last year how that Corinth was very wealthy City Cosmopolitan Multicultural but highly

immoral even in that Pagan world had a rep reputation or immorality yet in that church that City Paul established a solid ID Apostolic church now it had its problems you could tell it was what kind of culture it was from by reading first and 2 Corinthians but you can also tell from 1 and 2 Corinthians they were full of the Holy Ghost and had all the gifts of the Spirit so the Apostle Paul built an Apostolic Church in the most difficult place the city of Corinth that's what I preached last year if he could do it there we can do it in the USA if he could do it there we can do it in Canada let's build an Apostolic church so this year I decided Well let's go to the next chapter so I went to Acts 19 I found the city of Ephesus Paul went there he found certain disciples Believers of some kind probably had repented but he let him to water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ and receiving the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues there is a great Revival among sincere people that our Christians or our disciples or

our believers to some extent and if we try to beat them up and say you're heathens you have nothing we're going to miss our opportunity but if we say I'm glad to hear you're a disciple have you heard about the Holy Ghost if you haven't heard about the Holy Ghost how are you baptized there is a great Revival among all denominations and Christian people if it's time for us to get out of our walls and start baptizing them in Jesus name laying hands on them to receive the Holy Ghost it is happening now in our churches all across North America good methodists and Baptists and Catholics they realize that their churches are going a different direction and they're looking for a church that'll preach the truth this is our opportunity praise God so if you keep reading Acts 19 he taught in a school for two years he evangelized the city of Ephesus this was the capital of the Roman province of Asia which is Western Asia Minor and he evangelized the whole Province from that central location notice evangelizing training planting churches strategically there's your strategic growth right there he knew what he was

doing we're doing the same thing today we're doing a global missions we're doing a North American missions now his teaching was disruptive because he preached against idolatry and many gods so many people turned away from idolatry they stopped buying Idols they disrupted the economy of the town and so the silver Smiths got upset you're shutting down our business and so they got together they started protesting they created a riot and they began crying out great is Diana that was the goddess it's in the Roman name is Diana the Greek name is timus they said great is Diana of the Ephesians they started a riot a mob they went to the theater of the city which could see 25,000 people and for over two two hours they were yelling and screaming great is Diana I took a few pictures if you can start showing those pictures just to give you the the setting of that if you got them show them there's the theater that seeks 25,000 people so that's maybe eight or 10 times bigger than this Sanctuary right here I was there it's amazing to think the early Christians are right there then the

next picture I have is the main s Street Marble Street as you walk down the city of Ephesus it's amazing me the third one is emus or Diana this is what they found from the first century the Apostle Paul no doubt when he passed by the temple I think he probably looked inside this is what he saw you can barely see my wife there that gives you how big it is it's it's it's life siiz and then there's another statue they think it's from the second century but this is the Goddess that they worshiped now I showed these picture simply to say that Temple that she was in was one of the Seven Wonders of the World I looked at the dimension 60t High 450 ft long 225 ft wide which makes it over 100,000 square feet it had over 127 of those giant columns but to today as magnificent that is the worship of dying is dead that Temple is 100% destroyed there's not one stone of that Temple standing of its own they erected one column of the 127 to show you where it is but otherwise it doesn't even exist if you

want to go find Diana you have to go to a museum if you want to find the god the Goddess that they scream for two hours Great is the dying of the a you have to go to a museum just to find her but today Jesus Christ is preached everywhere today Jesus Christ is alive and well today the doctrine of Jesus has filled the whole earth and the most famous thing about Ephesus is a book called Ephesians the most famous thing about Ephesus is Paul wrote to a church the most famous thing about Ephesus is the Church of Ephesus you may seem like nothing to your Society but the most famous thing in your city is your church the most famous thing in your city is the preaching of Jesus Christ it will stand the test of time let's go outside of our four walls and let's start turning our city right side up praise God we have challenges I can only be very brief I'm quickly going to come to my application and close we Face materialism that detracts people distraction pleasure pursuit of pleasure a post-christian culture that no longer really acknowledges truth

multiculturalism the idea that there's no common unifying values or culture now don't get me wrong I believe in Multicultural evangelism I believe the church should have diversity of every color every race every background male and female young old middle-aged rural urban every Walk of Life but just the Mantra diversity is our strength is not necessarily true it's only a strength if you're unified with common values as a nation or as a church it can be a great detriment if diversity pits people against each other with the competing values and political correctness but if we will say look God has redeemed us from every race from every color but we are one in the spirit we're one in our values we're one in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that's a challenge we Face some say don't get involved with trying to be diverse because the world has already Twisted it I don't think that's an option the challenge is we've got to overcome come what the world has done and we've got to implement what Jesus Christ has established for us so here's what I noticed and I've spoken on this before so I'll be brief

I won't give you statistics but the liberal churches for years have been declining they're now only at 40% or 50% of their strength there are more people attending a United Pentecostal church on Sunday than the episcop Alia Church in the US which is our historic church from the church of England I'm just giving that as an example and then in the last few years conservative churches started declining and I think that's because they can't make the shift to a post-christian culture when the cultures at least nomally Christian conservative churches that preach Christianity can prosper but when the culture is mostly non-Christian people that just have a tradition have a hard time knowing what to do even if it's a bible-based tradition they have no power and then shockingly I've noticed in the last 10 years Trinity and Pentecostals has started to Plateau our Decline and at first that shocked me but then I realized that even though they're historically and theologically Pentecostal the vast majority their members no longer receive the holy spirit so of course they're going to follow the trajectory of all the other churches that's where we apostolics come into play we

have the word and we have the spirit we need both if we'll preach the word in the power of the Holy Ghost we'll have Revival in a post-christian culture will turn the world right side up it doesn't matter what we Face we have the word and the spirit now if we if we emphasize the word only we become no really different than a fundamentalist or maybe even a legalist if we emphasize a spirit only there's not going to be anything to separate us from the charismatic movement and I'm not attacking them for all the good the all these groups do they're not balanced but if we have the word and the spirit we'll have Apostolic Revival just like they did we'll turn thessalonica right side up we'll establish an Apostolic Church in Corinth will overcome the goddesses of evil in Ephesus we have the solution as general superon I felt in my heart two overriding goals number one growth and number two Healthy Growth so how are we doing on growth global missions 200 plus nations of the 210 and we're going to be adding some more this year plus we're focusing on people groups

I'm excited to get some reports of what our goals are there as we move into every nation every ethnicity every language group North American missions record growth of 240 churches planted in each of the last two years and I think we're on track to do that again it's the most in our history that's around a 5% rate that is planting one new church every 36 hours in the US and Canada that means in the US and Canada we're about 1 million in our total constituents that's that's the constituency and that's not just the faithful people if you add that to plus every around the world we're getting close to Six Million if you look at the numbers and again it's approximate but every year if you take the whole world including us and Canada we're going to have somewhere between 250 and 300,000 people baptized in Jesus name and the same amount somewhere in there maybe centered around 300,000 filled with the Holy Ghost now I'm thankful for that but we're not satisfied brother Hunley has challenged us and we're including North American in that if we're doing 300,000 a year that's exciting but what

let's see if we can push it to 1 million ion per year that would be by far the most outstanding Holy Ghost Revival in the history of the world Bar None that will change our world that will impact our world we're not seeking popularity or fame but I want people to know there's a Pentecostal Church in their City I want people to know there there's healing in their City I want people to know there's a place of Deliverance but I also want Healthy Growth and I must be brief and you need to fill in the blanks but we need to lead people with respect with love for Souls love for the unlovable yes we are opposed to sinful Lifestyles and so-called alternative Lifestyles but we can respect the people in those Lifestyles and we can love them what do you think Paul had to do in Ephesus when the whole city was saying great is di of the Ephesians they're idolators they're pagans you could blast them away to hell but if you want to win some you've got to say I love you I respect you I know you have a hunger for the

spiritual but let me tell you truth let me tell you where you can find it it's not in a statue in a giant Temple but it's in the house of Jason you're going to find the Holy Ghost we need to lead by service we need to lead by example we need to create cultures in our churches that help prevent abusive situations it's it's so prevalent in our society we can't be silent we've got to do everything we can to prevent it when it happens we got to deal with it forthrightly I could sit here and tell you story after story that would make you want to cry it happens in society you've all dealt with people who've been abused and and mistreated but it doesn't need to happen in church and if in the rare occasion it does we've got to be ready to deal with it in an appropriate proper ethical legal moral way I'm saying this is part of how we turn the world right set up this is how how we tell people look at our church and say that's a church that loves people that's a church that respects people that's

a church that knows how to help broken people listen me I know what I'm talking about in this vein I believe in Spiritual Authority there needs to be more real Spiritual Authority in our society but it doesn't need to be authoritarianism it needs to be Authority that's accountable Authority that's under Authority No Authority is absolute except God's Authority when I was a pastor I would say that did that detract from my authorities Pastor absolutely not that enhanced my authority because people knew I'm not claiming to be your God I'm not claiming to be your dictator I'm under Authority myself I could make a mistake too but I'm your leader and I'm with you and I'm going to help you I don't believe I have absolute veto power I believe I have influence and I can guide through the word and the spirit when I counsel our people I did not pull the ultimate trump card if you don't obey me you're in Rebellion you're going to hell no I tried to say here's the word of God and if it wasn't a matter of the word of God I'd say here's my Godly advice based

on experience and wisdom and the Holy Ghost but if they didn't follow it I didn't say I have absolute veto power some of our leaders here brother Hunley I see you brother sister if I pulled you in my office and said I really feel we need to do such and such you would do such and such but I would never use absolute veto power I would say consult your team I would say what do you think I would say what do you want to do and I would give my advice I would give my guidance and if I have authority in a certain administrative situation I might have to use it but I'm never going to try to be an absolute Authority even on the people that are supposed to be directly under me why because that's not how you lead in the kingdom of God lead by influence lead by the word and the spirit lead by the Holy Ghost too many churches in our world have fake Authority we need Apostolic churches that operate in Apostolic Authority and one more thing I just have to hint on this Zechariah 7:9-10 just a practical

note of how we can turn our world right side up but Zechariah 7:9 through 10 thus says the Lord of hosts execute True Justice show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother that's not just the church member that's people of society do not oppress the widow or the fatherless the alien or the poor let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother God has special care for the poor the marginalized the despised the helpless and we hear a lot of political talk what about the homeless what about the Immigrant what about this person and if we're not careful we can turn away from that and saying I don't want to go to that political correct or liberal route but that's where the church can step in and have real Ministry to people that are in need practical Ministry we can partner with other groups in certain things but we as the church can create our own Avenues and we do have some endorsed organizations we can offer classes in our church that actually help people who are homeless or help people immigrants and whether they're here legally or not that's not our

concern that's the government concern but our concern to see them baptized in Jesus name and fill with the Holy Ghost if they need to go back home they'll go back full of the Holy Ghost if they can stay they'll improve our society there is a real opportunity for the church not to turn your eye away from the needy and