GOD WORKS THE NIGHT SHIFT
Ps. 121:3-4
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: MISSING THE POINT
1. A honeymooning couple was passing through Louisiana.
2. As they approached Lafayette, they started arguing about the pronunciation of the town’s name. They argued back and forth until they reached town, where they decided to stop for lunch.
3. As they stood at the counter, the man said, “Before we order, could you please settle and argument for us? Would you very slowly pronounce where we are?”
4. The guy behind the counter leaned over and said, “Burrrrrrr gerrrrrr Kiiiing!”
B. TEXT
Psalm 121:3-4, “He will not let your foot slip— He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.”
C. THESIS
1. Have you noticed how problems always seem bigger in the middle of the night? They can overwhelm us. They can rob us of sleep and steal our peace.
2. In the middle of the night, when we can’t figure out what to do, we need to remember that God works the night shift. He’s up all night anyway, why not cast our cares on Him?
3. Title: “God Works the Nightshift.”
I. DIFFICULTIES OF THE NIGHT SHIFT
A. PROBLEMS OF WORKING THE NIGHT SHIFT
Q- Have you ever worked the night shift? Getting used to the schedule isn’t much fun.
1. It means eating supper and going to bed when everybody else is eating breakfast and getting ready for the day. Days and nights are reversed.
2. It means sleeping when others are awake, working when others are playing, watching the moon instead of the sun, working in the dark instead of the day.
3. It’s different. Not everybody can take it. Too lonely, too dark, too much of a difficult thing.
B. WHO HAS TO WORK THE NIGHT SHIFTS?
1. Yet life would be much more difficult for everyone if it were not for those who work the night shift—the policeman who patrols the warehouses and dark streets from midnight to dawn, the nurse who makes her lonely rounds at the hospital.
2. Then there’s the stockers who stock the shelves of grocery stores, the taxi driver who’s there to meet the 3 a.m. flight, as well as the pilot who stayed awake while his passengers slept.
3. And don’t forget about the firemen, prison guards, utility workers, our military personnel, etc.
C. THE NIGHT SHIFT INTENSIFIES THINGS
1. Some love the night shift; others hate it. I know one thing: the darkness of the night shift seems to intensify everything.
2. It’s darker, it’s quieter, it’s lonelier, it’s longer. Sixty minutes can seem as long as an entire afternoon with daylight.
3. During the night shift everything is intensified including sounds: the creak of the floor, the noise of the refrigerator, the ticking of the clock, even the whisper of voices or sounds penetrating the darkness.
II. BUT THE DARKNESS HAS ITS UPSIDE
A. IN THE DARKNESS, WE CAN HEAR GOD BETTER
1. Question: Does God work the night shift? You bet He does. In a book entitled, “God Works the Night Shift,” Ron Mehl said that we often hear the voice of God speaking to us in the quietness of the night when the noise of traffic, the cries of children, and the TVs, computers, and Spotify go off! God says, “Be STILL and know that I am God!”
2. Studies have found that when people are born blind, their brain “rewires” itself to compensate for the absence of visual information. In other words, their hearing becomes heightened. Us too!
3. ILLUSTRATION: Trained Ear
a. A Canadian ship was in a fog on one of the Great Lakes. The captain's face suddenly became tense, then perplexed. He rang for slowed engines, then for reversed engines. The whistle shrieked, but no answer came. "There's something dead ahead," he declared, "I get an echo from something."
b. Just then the fog lifted a little, and not ten feet from the bow was a huge steel scow which had broken loose from harbor and drifted. A landman said he had heard no echo. The captain chuckled. "It's a matter of an educated hearing. God gave us ears, but we don't always train them."—Sunday School Times.
B. IN THE DARK, GOD IS SHAPING US
1. In his book, Mehl writes, “Whether you’re a babe-in-Christ or a seasoned saint...there’s just one thing going on in your hardships: God’s working in the dark and shaping you to resemble the Prince of Peace, the Bright and Morning Star.”
2. The darkness is a place we have to learn to trust in God. When we don’t have adequate information to make a choice, we should fall back on the Lord’s last instructions to us.
C. “DARKNESS” USUALLY REPS TROUBLE
Darkness is not only the absence of sunshine in our lives; it is also represents the difficulties, the suffering, the results of our stupid mistakes, the losses we sustain. These all bring us into a time of darkness/ unknown.
III. THANK GOD, HE WORKS THE NIGHT SHIFT
A. EXAMPLES OF GOD WORKING AT NIGHT:
1. The Egyptian slavery over Israel was broken; Exodus 12:29, “At midnight the Lord struck down all the firstborn in Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh, who sat on the throne, to the firstborn of the prisoner, who was in the dungeon, and the firstborn of all the livestock as well.” God was working at Midnight.
2. The Second Coming of Jesus is said to happen at Midnight; Matthew 25:6, “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’
3. God set Paul & Silas free from the Philippian Jail; Acts 16:25-26, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. 26 Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everyone’s chains came loose.”
B. GOD WAS THERE FOR PAUL & SILAS!
1. You may be in the darkest times of your life, but give God praise.
2. Paul and Silas were beaten, and humiliated publicly, and they were bound and cast into the inner prison. They could have complained, they could have been angry and bitter, or they could have had self pity, but they didn’t.
3. The bible says: “At midnight, Paul and Silas began to pray and sing praises unto God, and God shook that prison off its foundation and shook the doors off their hinges, and broke the shackles off of every prisoner.
4. I just stopped by to tell somebody; God works the night shift, in fact he does his best work in the dark.
5. You may not see it, but he’s working, you may not feel it, but he’s working. Tell your neighbor: He’s working on it.
C. GOD KNOWS ABOUT YOUR SITUATION
1. “God fills the heavens & the earth?” (Jer. 23:24). Even they can’t contain Him! “In Him we live, & move, & have our being” Acts 17:28. I SERVE A BIG GOD!
2. Prov. 15:3 says, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” Heb. 4:13, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
3. God says He knows if one sparrow falls to the ground, if one hair falls from your head. He knows everything that’s going on in your life.
4. And the best thing of all – is that He loves you and is motivated, in all He does, by love. Wow!
5. God is a “present help in every time of need” Ps. 46:1. God never sleeps. If WE help someone, it has to fit into our schedule and be convenient. But God is always ready to help. So we can go on to sleep and rest, because God will be awake all night!
6. Isaiah said, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak” Isa. 40:28-29.
7. David said, “He will not let your foot slip— He who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.” Ps. 121:3-4; and “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Ps. 4:8.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: Sheep Follow Shepherd’s Call
1. During the riots in Palestine in the middle 1930’s a village near Haifa was condemned to collective punishment by having its sheep and cattle seized by the British Government.
2. The inhabitants however were permitted to redeem their possessions at a fixed price. Among them was an orphan shepherd boy, whose six or eight sheep and goats were all he had in the world for life and work.
3. Somehow he obtained the money for their redemption. He went to the big enclosure where the animals were penned, offering his money to the British sergeant in charge.
4. The British officer told him he was welcome to the requisite number of animals, but ridiculed the idea that he could possibly pick out his “little flock” from among the confiscated hundreds.
5. The little shepherd thought differently, and gave his own “call” by his shepherd’s pipe. Wonderment crossed the Officer’s face as he watched sheep – all across the vast herd – separate themselves from the rest and trot over to the boy.
6. This reminds us what Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd and My sheep know My voice, and they follow Me.” [Eric Bishop, Jesus of Palestine: The Local Background to the Gospel Documents, (London: Lutterworth, 1955), pp. 297-98]
B. THE CALL
1. Mary Crowley said: “Every evening I turn my worries over to God. He’s going to be up all night anyway.” Lay down and sleep beloved, God’s got this!
2. The Apostle Peter said we’re to “Cast all your care upon him; for he cares for you” 1 Pet. 5:7.
3. How many of you have burdens you’re carrying around? Isn’t it time you turned them over to the Lord? How many have a special need for prayer? Stand. Let’s all join together in beseeching God.
4. PRAYER.
[This is a rewrite of Harold Sala’s “God Works the Night Shift”]
