Upside Down

Intro

The world is crying out for the right thing to be done. But what is the right thing? How do you know what the right thing is? What is your foundation/basis or even begining?

What would happen to this world if Christians went against the culture and the patterns in this world?

What would happen in this world if Christians actually practiced what we are instructed to do in the Bible?

There is only 1 way.

Scripture

This chapter is Isaiah gives 6 woes or 6 specific sins which bring down the judgment of God upon the nation of Israel.

Isaiah 5:20 CSB

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

The 4th woe is against those who confused ethical categories. They classified actions as evil that God would call good and vice versa.

Relying on our own wisdom leads to a distorted view of the world and a skewed perspective on right and wrong. (see in vs. 21)

This is the fourth sin against which the fourth woe is leveled. It is an attempt to destroy God’s standards of right and wrong by substituting man’s values which contradict His moral standards. This is the confusion that comes upon a nation when they abandon God after He has blessed them in the past for their acknowledgment of Him. England is a present–day example of this, and America is fast deteriorating in the same direction.

We have this confusion in our standards of marriage today. I listened to a very beautiful little girl tell her story on a television interview program. She was living with a man to whom she was not married, and the reason she gave was that she was being honest—she did not believe in being a hypocrite. I have news for her: she is not only a hypocrite and dishonest, she knows that what she is doing is wrong and that she should be married. God says she is living in adultery. I don’t care, my friend, what you might think about it—that’s what God says.

Mark 10:43–45 CSB

But it is not so among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you will be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you will be a slave to all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

We couldn’t go more against the flow than if we follow the example of Christ.

10:43–44 Becoming great in Christian leadership means becoming a servant—that is, doing your Master’s will and humbly working for the good of others.

10:45 The greatest example of servant leadership is the Son of Man. Giving is the essence of servanthood, and Jesus gave his life as a ransom for many (cp. Is 53:10–12). “Ransom” refers to the price paid to release a slave. The words of v. 45 are crucial to Jesus’s self-understanding of his death.