CONCLUSION
5. The Lord turned around the church in all Judea and Galilee and Samaria so it enjoyed peace and was built up. (Acts 9:31) The Lord is capable of using all kinds of adversity to bring revival and growth to the local church.
Application; Ask the Lord to help you find those strategic turning points where your church and members can experience God’s power to turn their lives toward a brighter path.
6. God helps us turn our negative thoughts to positive expectations through the Spirit that lives within us. The church experienced terrible persecution, violence, conspiracy, and suspicion, dispersing and then suddenly, out of the blue, Jesus turns things around.
Application: Christ is a change agent and that is how His Spirit helps us view everything. Ask the Lord to help you start to expect how He will turn things around for the best instead of fretting about the worst.
7. God has turned things around in the Soviet Union, in Korea and throughout the mission fields of the world by His power. He responded to the prayers of Godly people in this passage and He is eager to do the same today.
Application: Ask the Lord to continue to turn things organizations, people and nations around that are in need of change.
8. The Lord turns things around because He wants people to depend on His wisdom and truth. Paul wrote,
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will thwart. Where is the wise man? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" (1 Cor. 1:19-20)
Application: Ask God to turn things around for you in remarkable ways. Never underestimate God as ability to turn around your own feelings of gloom, discouragement or despair by His omnipotent power.
SERMON CENTRAL
CONTRIBUTED BY PAUL FRITZ October 2000
