Acts 16:16-34 "Bad Day: Sunnyside-up"

Sunny Side Up Lyrics musician: Earl Burtnett (Depression era song)

Keep your sunny side up, up!

Hide the side that gets blue.

If you have nine sons in a row,

Baseball teams make money, you know!

Keep your funny side up, up!

Let your laughter come thru, do!

Stand upon your legs, be like two fried eggs,

Keep your sunny side up!

This passage teaches how we can respond to bad day. Here’s a few things we should remember about bad days…

I. We can’t control bad days.

We can’t control:

• When they cramp your style.

• Dragged around like a piece of trash.

• Misrepresented to important people.

• Masses are turned against you.

• When you’re beaten down.

• Forced to be in a place where you don’t want to be.

• Rejoice in that day and be ________.

Jn 16:32 “But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. 33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

II. We can control our response to bad days.

We can control our praises. Our praises can:

• Make light shine in the darkness.

• Can rock a world that’s all bound-up.

• Removes shackles.

Makes men with hardened hearts praise God.

• Teach our enemies a few lessons.

Phillipians 4: 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

(Context is so important!)

10 I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

III. God controls the outcomes of bad days.

Don’t forget what God can do:

• Our darkness can bring light to others!

• Our bad news can become good news for others!

• Eternal life is shared in the midst of life!

• We sometimes sacrifice a little so others may gain a lot.

More context….

Rm. 8: 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;

we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Folks, we will have bad days.

By faith we can control our response to those bad days.

And with trust in a loving heavenly father know God controls the outcomes of bad days.