While we might find it fun – even thrilling – to experience the gravity-defying ride of a roller coaster that coils, dips, drops, and turns us upside down, most of us find it uncomfortable to have our everyday lives up-ended. We have carefully laid plans, clear goals, and great hopes for our lives. We don’t find it so fun when those things get turned upside down. And it's even more disorienting to suffer those tragedies, small and large, that enter every life at some time... unexpected divorce, life-changing medical diagnosis, layoff from a job, death of someone close. Times like these seem to be the worst of what life has to offer. But in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) Jesus opens with a series of 'blessings' that seem anything but. Jesus seems to suggest that these kinds of hurts and heartaches are the very places and times we find special favor with God. Jesus has a lot to say that seems over and against the ways of the world, even counter to what seems and feels right. Could it be that what we experience as bad, wrong, painful, and tragic, Jesus can use for our good, drawing us closer to each other and closer to him? In the upside-down kingdom of God, things are not always as they seem - and that's a good thing! Worship Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07kgKoUNLGU