Praise in the Midnight: How Worship Unlocks Breakthrough | Acts 16:22-34 - Dallas Herndon

But even though God never changes, he never gets old. And because he never gets old, it never gets stale. It never gets it never gets routine.

Hello, friends. Welcome to the Life Tabernacle Church podcast. It's an honor to be with you today. This podcast serves as our church's weekly sermon archive. Tune in each week to hear what god is speaking in our community.

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Be celebrating Pentecost Sunday here in a few weeks, and we've been kinda preaching a sermon series to help prepare us for Pentecost. Look at your neighbor and say, Pentecost. Pentecost. And so we'll be celebrating that in a few weeks. Last week, I enjoyed, I enjoyed most of my sermons I preach, I enjoy preaching.

Some of em, you feel em a little bit more than others. Last week, I really enjoyed the message. It really blessed me to raise my expectation, to raise my faith, and my hope, and what god wants to do in my life and in the church in general and so today, I hope this has a similar effect on you as well. Acts 16 starting in verse 22. It says, the crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas The magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten with rods.

After they had been severely flogged they were flown in thrown into prison and the jailers were commanded to guard them carefully. When he received these orders he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks. About midnight can you say midnight. Good Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening to them. 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. A jailer woke up and when he had saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he, because because he saw the prison doors open. Sorry. He drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, don't harm yourself.

We are all here. The jailer called for the lights rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, sirs, what must I do to be saved? They replied, believe in the lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You and your household.

Then they spoke the word of the lord to him and to all the others in the house. At that hour of the night, the jailer took them and washed their wounds then immediately, he and all his household were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them. He was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God and he and his whole household. My friends, this is the word of the Lord.

You know what one of the things I love to do is to sing and I'm not a very good singer as you all know as I attempted to sing as the deer last week it was out of key and out of everything that it could been out of. But I love to sing and no matter what song it is I love to sing, I want to show you something this morning. This is before she, before sister Anna plays it, I want to show you that this is a picture of what it looks like to worship in the nation of Nepal. I got to go to Nepal a few years ago. Nepal is situated between India and China and I got to partake in a worship service there.

And this is what it looked like and this is what it sounded like. Now, I wanna ask you a question. Does that look like one of the churches you've been in before? No. There was three seats in this room, three of those little white chairs, the little lawn chairs that break too easy if you sit down too hard, those.

There was three of those and they reserved them for us for some reason and we were big white Americans and we almost broke them little white chairs, okay? And and this is where we worship for a few days. There's probably at most there's probably 75 or a 100 people packed into the small room singing those songs. And guess what? I didn't understand one of those words that they said in that song when we sang it.

Did you? Any of y'all speak Nepalese? Because I certainly don't. But I tell you what, I was able to praise with them in a way I can't explain to you. Because the object of their praise is the same.

They are praising and worshiping God. I've been in the nation Brazil a few times and I tell you what, if you ever get to go to Brazil as well, I just want you to hop into a Brazilian worship service because it's gonna start at six and you're gonna get out at probably eleven and that's normal. Yes. Hours. And people don't get tired of it either.

They just gather into a room and people just begin to sing praises to god for hours. Again, I didn't understand the words. It just sounded good to me. But what I knew and what I could do is I could still praise even though I didn't know the words because the atmosphere of praise and worship was present. I've been in places in The United States Of America.

I lived in Dallas for a while and when I lived in Dallas I got to attend one of the I would say one of the churches that has one of the best worship groups in the in the world. I'm talking about the most excellent musicians, the best singers, the best production value, you name it, the best. And I could sense God's presence in that place so heavily. But at the same time, I've been to churches in the great state of Michigan which have a worship leader who's just trying their best. Can't really sing.

Sounds like me when I'm singing honestly. And guess what? I could still sense the presence of God and I could still praise and worship in that place. Why? Because my praise is not predicated on a production value.

My praise is predicated on a person. And when I read this text out of Acts chapter 16, it begins to teach me something about the topic of praise that literally can unlock breakthrough in your life. Who needs breakthrough in their life? Amen? I need breakthrough in my own life, the lives of my family, and the lives of my friends, and the lives of my community that I live in.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

We need breakthrough. And what's happening in this story, what we learned from Paul and Silas can really change your life. So lock in with me just for a few moments. So in this story, there's two guys named Paul and Silas and they're on a missionary journey. Paul has this crazy vision of a Macedonia man.

Paul's really wanting to go to Asia to preach the gospel, but God doesn't allow him to go to Asia. God directs him, West, and he begins to preach the gospel in Macedonia, which would eventually drift in to Europe. And then while Paul and Silas are in the city, Paul and Silas have this weird, episode with this slave girl. There's a slave girl in the city of Philippi and she was filled with a demon. She's filled with the evil spirit that could fortune tell.

And while Paul and Silas are going about the city, this little girl is following them around declaring things to them and Paul finally gets annoyed with this little lady and says come out of her in Jesus name. That girl gets delivered. Demon comes out of her. She's set free, but the problem is the slave girl was making her owners, her masters a lot of money because this guy was profiting off this young lady's ability to, commune and talk with demons and they didn't like that because all their profit revenue went out the window when Paul delivered this girl. There's a whole other message in that.

Right? And because of that, these people cause some other people to get the whole city in an uproar and as a result, Paul and Silas are arrested, beaten, and thrown into prison for setting a young girl free. Wow. And then what it says in verse 24, when he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in stocks. So the jailer, the guy in charge of the jail is given very specific commands.

You're to put them in the inner cell and you're to fasten their feet and stocks. This is probably what a a first century inner cell would have looked like. I got a picture here for you. So this would probably be what an inner cell looks like. Okay?

And so this probably looks different than your mind to other jail cells that you've seen on TV shows or in real life. Okay? But this inner cell literally was in the inner of the inner of the prison. It was like the maximum security portion of the prison where there was little to no light and you were stuck here in the inner cell. And not only that, not only you behind locked doors in this inner cell with almost no light their feet are fastened in stocks or in feet cuffs if you will.

They've been thrown in here. They're locked up. They're in a literally a dark place. This was a dark place literally but figuratively as well. They're in a dark place with no way of out no way out, no way of escape.

As David said in Psalm twenty three four, even though I walk through the darkest valley. They're in a dark valley. They're in a dark place, Christina. Have you ever been there? Have you ever been in a dark place?

Have you ever got a diagnosis you weren't expecting? Have you ever had a friendship break unexpected? Have you ever been in a dark place? We've all been there. I've been there, and I'll be there again because life with God is mountains and it's valleys.

It's it's up and down, and we're always going to experience valleys. Okay? We're always gonna experience dark places. We're always going to experience hardship and suffering on this side of eternity. It's just the way it is.

Jesus said, you will have tribulation. You will go through suffering. You're not gonna avoid it all. It's just part of life. And for Paul and Silas, they've been there more than once, and again, they are literally locked up in a dark place with no hope of a way out.

And they're probably thinking to themselves, this is it. Because the next time the jailer comes to get us, they're gonna take us outside and they're gonna kill us in front of everybody. They'd seen some of their buddies already killed by other Roman officials. Jesus was himself was crucified. They have no hope in a way.

They're in the inner cell and their feet are locked up. And many times when we're in a tough spot, what do we do? We complain. Oh, god. I don't know why I'm going through this.

You begin to lose hope, and you're like, there's no hope out of this situation. I don't I don't see how I don't see a way. I don't I don't see how god's gonna do something about this, and we begin to kinda spiral out of control, and thankfully, that's not what Paul and Silas do, do they? Let's look at verse 25 again together. It says about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.

We're gonna sit our feet right in here for about the next ten minutes. So about midnight, raise your hand if you were asleep at midnight last night. Alright? We got some night owls here, but for most of us, we're sleeping. Okay?

About midnight, I don't know about you, when I have something that's really overwhelming me in my life, it seems to really come up at night. You lay down in your bed, you say your prayers, and all of a sudden that situation, that dark place begins to just kinda roll itself over in your mind. And you're trying to fall asleep and you're thinking, well, what happens if this happens? What happens if they don't do this? And you and you find yourself maybe awake at midnight just worrying to death.

And in the same way, about midnight, Paul and Silas are awake. They're not sleeping, but they're having a nice little worship session. Okay? So about midnight, they're not worrying, they're praising. I love what Psalms one nineteen fifty five says.

It says, in the night, Lord, I remember your name that I might keep your law. There's something about being up at night, being up at midnight in the scriptures, and not worrying, but you're praising. When the world would be worrying, you're praising God. And what are they doing? They're up at midnight praying and singing hymns to God.

The literal Greek translation probably sounds like this, praying or singing praises. It's the idea that they were they were up at midnight praying to God. They were calling on the name of the Lord. They were asking, Lord, let your will be done. Lord, would you find to get us get us a way out of here?

Lord, would you allow these people in here to get saved? Would you allow your gospel to go forth? They are just having a prayer meeting here at midnight, and they are praying so fervently, they begin to burst forth in a song. It's like extemporaneously comes from their heart. Their prayer turns into praise, and they begin to sing songs of praise and hymns unto their God.

They're praying hard, and it says they're singing hymns. The word singing hymns is literally means to sing praises to god. Alright? They're singing literal worship songs, if you will, that they know that are probably based off the scriptures, and they have burst forth singing those songs in this dark place. It's midnight.

They're praying and they're singing, and everyone's listening to it. Do you see that in the text? It says, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Now let's make a few things clear now. Let's talk about worship, praise, and singing.

Because worship is not necessarily praise, and praise is not necessarily singing or playing music. But often, we will burst forth singing songs of praise as an act of worship. Worship, praise, and singing songs are different, but they often go together. Let me break this down to you. So what is worship?

Let's start there. What is worship? When we think worship, you think of what we did a few minutes ago. We began to sing songs of praise to God. We call this, hey, join us for worship.

We're going to worship God. I'm gonna listen to worship music. But worship is so much more than just singing or a genre of music. Worship is something we do with our whole lives. Worship is how we serve God.

Worship is how we follow God and how we love him. In the Old Testament, God, Yahweh expected Israel to only worship him and not to worship the other gods and idols of the region. Other nations around Israel would worship other gods, meaning they would give their devotion in their lives, in their hope, and trust. They would give their faith to another god. And God's expectation is you're going to worship me alone.

You are going to serve me alone. You are going to love me alone. And we worship, my friends, not just in song, but we worship with our whole lives. We worship with how we treat one another. We worship God with our money, how we spend our money.

We worship God with our mouths, whether we're building people up or whether we're tearing people down. Our whole lives is a whole act of worship. Everything we do is worship, and everything we do is either pointing to God or pointing somewhere else. Our whole lives are an act of worship. And a big part of worship is sacrifice.

Look at your neighbor and say sacrifice. I love this story. It's one of the craziest stories in the old testament. It's in Genesis 22. This is when God asked Abram.

God asked Abraham to take his one and only son, Isaac, the son of the promise, up this mountain to sacrifice him. You remember this story? They go on a journey. They go up the mountain, and Abraham's getting ready to kill his son because that's what God commanded him to do. And right before he drops the dagger into his son, God says, stop.

Don't lay a hand on the boy. I have provided the sacrifice. That's when we learn Jehovah Jireh that god provides. Amen? But I love what it says in twenty two five.

Abraham said to his servants, stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you. And so this word worship here it uses sacrifice. For them to sacrifice an animal or to sacrifice something is an act of worship. So when we come to church, when we do anything with our lives, when we come to worship, we come to sacrifice something of ourselves.

Right? We come to lay it down, let it die before God as a gift to him. And so worship. Look at your neighbor and say worship one more time. Good.

So worship is our wholehearted sacrificial devotion unto God. We worship God with our whole lives. Alright? And the thing, a thing that we often do as we worship God with our lives is we praise him. Right?

And so look at this. Praise is the outward, emotional, physical response to our devotion to God. Let me ask you this. Is anybody here who has a favorite football team, favorite basketball team, or favorite something? Raise your hand.

Any favorites out there? Okay. So when you go to a game or you're watching a game on the TV, k, I'm a Cowboys fan so I don't get to praise much. Okay? Alright.

You're supposed to laugh there. They're terrible. Right? Alright. When you watch a game or something and your team scores or your team pulls it out at the last minute, you almost automatically burst forth in praise.

You go, yes. We scored. High five. And you look at all your buddies and you do high fives because you're excited. This praise bursts forth from you as a response to the thing in which you worship.

Now I'm not suggesting that we worship our sporting teams here, but what I'm saying is we have a devotion or a love for our teams, and when they score, when they do well, we praise them. We oh, man, the quarterback pray played so good today, we praise the quarterback or we praise whatever it is. So it's it's very simple and they are interconnected that when we worship something, we praise it as well. And here's the thing, praise is an action word. When I say praise, that means there's an action associated with it.

I think we get this. Right? And so praise can be singing. So a few minutes ago, we part took as a part of our worship gathering to sing songs of praise to god. Collectively in here, we were singing, I'll never know how much it cost to see my sin upon that cross.

That's so powerful. It's so life changing and we were singing that as an action of praise unto god. So we praise God with our voices. We sing. We also praise God by lifting our hands.

Now as a kid, in youth group, my youth leaders always told me you should you should should lift your hands and worship. And I'm like, why? Am I trying to wave somebody down? What am I doing? No.

What I'm doing is I'm praising. I'm lifting up metaphorically, but literally in a way, I'm lifting up my hands to God saying, I'm all yours. There's no one like you. That you're empty handed before God and you're saying, God, I'm all yours. You can do with me whatever you want.

I'm praising you. So we praise god by singing with our voices. We lift our hands. As you saw me this morning, I bowed low. A big part of worship in the Old Testament, you see people bowing low before god.

It's just an act of reverence before god because god is holy. And as people used to bow before kings over history, that we bow before god in reverence of who he is. Right? This is not necessarily demanded of us, right? But this is something that we get to do as an act of worship.

Sometimes, we dance. Anybody like to dance in here? No one likes to dance like David in here, This is one of things. I love watching my daughters dance before the lord. Are they dancing just because?

No. There's a certain level of freedom. There's a certain sense of god's spirit that they are sensing, and they feel free in his presence. David in the Old Testament said that David danced before the lord, and other people didn't like it. He danced so extravagantly and so beautifully before the lord.

Even his own wife, Michal, was mad at the way he was dancing before god. And those church denominations and there's church groups that say, you're not allowed to dance. Dancing's that of the devil. No. Dance is not of the devil.

You can dance unto the glory of god as an act of praise. That's the point I'm trying to make. Or another one, the last one I'll make, another example, is just laying prostrate before the Lord. You ever done this? You might be in a holy moment and you just feel like, I just wanna lay before God's feet.

Just as Mary of Bethany poured out her oil on the feet of Jesus in the gospel of John, and she just laid before his feet. Just laid before him, just showing him, you are so holy, you are so reverent. I'm pouring out my expensive oil on you. I'm pouring out my praise and my worship upon your feet because you're worthy of it. And that's the thing about praise.

That's the thing about praise. Praise is this. I love this quote. This is important. I need you to catch hold of this today.

Let's look at this quote together. Praise is an appropriate response to who god is, what he has done, and what he will do. Praise is an appropriate response to who god is, what he has done, and what he will do. Every single one of you here have experienced god to some degree in your life. Every one of you here, for the most part, I would assume you know God and his character well, that we serve a God who is good, who is gracious, who is compassionate, who is loving, who is almighty, who is omniscient, who's all powerful, who can do all things.

We serve a great god, and we praise him for who he is. And we also praise him for what he's done. I tell you what, I praise him for what he's done in my life. Because if there's certain things that God didn't do in my life, I wouldn't be here with you today, my friends. So I praise God for what he's done, and I also declare because I know who God is, I know what he's done in the past, I believe and I confess what he will do in the future.

So praise is an outward action with our bodies, a physical response to God's character and God's nature. And that's why, if you watch me or watch people around the room, that's why when I'm in worship, I will usually close my eyes. I'm directed towards the front, and I'm lifting my hands because I'm just in awe of God. I'll bow before him because I just love him. I wanna just show him I love him.

I wanna show that he's reverend and he's holy. And all this all this is praise. And in the scriptures, Gail, God commands his people to praise over and over again. What does it say in Psalm one zero three two? Psalm one zero three two says, praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

Sing to the Lord a new song. His praise in the assembly of his faithful people. We're also commanded to sing songs of praise to one another. This is what it says in Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians five nineteen says, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the spirit.

Sing and make music from your heart to the lord. We are to use song as a form of praise, and we are commanded to what? Sing a new song. Raise your hand if you like old songs. Good.

Raise your hand if you like new songs. Good. Raise your hand if you like gospel music. Yeah. I'm not a huge gospel music fan, be honest, right?

Raise your hand if you like Christian rap. Fewer company. Right? Raise your hand if you like listening to Spirit FM and Christian contemporary music. Raise your hand if you like listening to Gregorian chant from the Catholic Church.

Alright. Just me. Alright? Raise your hand if you like singing out of the hymn, a hymn or a hymn book. Raise your hand if you like singing them old holy ghost stomping songs, right?

At one point in time, all these songs that we love were new songs. And do you know why we sing new songs? Because we're not just singing new songs that just sing songs. We're not just making up songs. It's in our nature to be creative, brother Jeff.

So that's why we continue to create. We can continue to innovate. But the reason why we sing new songs is simply because because god never changes and he never gets old. You you you see that catch? We serve we we praise god for who he is.

Does god change? No. Help me out. Does god change? No.

He's the same yesterday forever and ever. Amen. He's the same. He's the if he would he did this yesterday, he'll do it then. God never changes.

But even though God never changes, he never gets old. And because he never gets old, it never gets stale. It never gets it never gets routine. Right? Because a new a a a relationship with god is an ongoing, beautiful, vibrant relationship that continues to change and evolve from day to day.

God never changes, but our song does. But we're singing the same song. Whether we're singing holy, holy, holy from the hymn book or holy forever from the new song that's been released in the past few years, it's the same thing. We're singing about into the one and true holy god in a different way, in a different form or fashion. So, whether you like gospel music, if you like gospel music, good for you.

If you like Christian rap, good for you. It doesn't matter. We all have preferences. We all have preferences, right? Right?

Some of us like sirloin steak. Some of us like rib eye. I'm a sirloin guy. Okay? We all have preferences.

Right? But we should never allow our preferences to keep us from the person. Sometimes, what we'll do and we're all guilty of it is we won't engage in praise. We won't engage in the worship set because it's not our preferred style or song. You know, that that didn't it's not really my song I like, you know.

Not really my preference. As if worship's about us. It's about who? Right. And here's the thing.

Worship is about god and worship's to god but god doesn't need it. God doesn't need it. If none of us ever praise or worship god, he'd be just fine. He's securing himself. He's god.

He's fine. But you know who benefits from praise? You. You benefit from praise. It's to God, but it benefits you, Seth.

When you open your mouth, when you lift your hands, and you sing praises to God with God's people, you get blessed. You receive breakthrough. You receive a fresh anointing of God's presence. God doesn't need it. He deserves it.

And we are to sing all types of songs of praise to him. Old, new, all types to him. Doesn't matter the style or preference. We all have preferences. But what matters is the person in which we're praising.

And why is this so important? Why is this all so important? It's because of what happens in this text. About midnight, Paul and Silas were singing and praying were praying and singing hymns to God and other prisoners were listening to them. And what happens, my friends, after they pray, after they sing, after they declare God's goodness in song, there's an earthquake.

And the whole prison shaken from the foundations, and the gates of those prison doors bust loose, and the shackles on people's feet bust loose, and everybody's free. And guess what? They're not confused, sister Brenda. They're not confused thinking, oh, this is a random earthquake. They had heard these men praying and praising god and then the place was shaken.

Just like it was in Acts chapter two when they prayed. The place was shaken with the power of the holy spirit. And what happens then? There's breakthrough. There's miracles.

There's deliverance. There's salvation. That's why it's so important. This is why I want you to catch it, and this is why I really want you to take hold of it. Look at this.

Look at verse 29. It says, the jailer called for the lights and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Oh, I love that, brother Glenn. I tell you why.

Because we're not just praising god for ourselves, but when we press through, when we praise god like he deserves, and we we mean it from the heart, and we just engage in praise and singing songs of adoration to him, it directs other people to him. And guess what? He and the whole household got saved that night as a response to their praise. What would happen in your life if you praised like that? What would happen in your life if you prayed like that?

If you praised God in the midnight hour, what people would come to know Christ? We're not just praising just because, we're praising because God deserves it, God is worthy, and when we praise like that, other people get set free, and that's the goal. We're not just having a good old worship night. I love a good worship night. Shoot.

I love just coming to the church and singing glorious songs. But when God's people get together and we declare who God is, people get set free. Would you stand with me today, my friends? I've witnessed way too many powerful moments in my life, in my young life already. In the arena of praise and worship.

I have seen god breakthrough in some mysterious, miraculous way during the worship set. And there's something about it when we lock in and we just praise him because he's worthy. We all have preferences. That's okay. But what we can't do my friends is allow our preferences to keep us from the person.

So whether you like the style of the song or not, I guarantee you like the object of the song, which is God. And so not just today, but for the rest of your lives. Praise like you mean it. Whether you're in a worship set with the best band in the world, or you're in a worship set with someone who can't sing like me, you can still praise because he's worthy of it and he deserves it. Would you close your eyes with me this morning?

Lord, I thank you for this word because these men did not lose hope because these men kept their eyes fixed on you, Jesus. They were able to sing and pray and declare the goodness of God even in their dark place. And Lord, we can learn to do the same, that even when we're in that dark valley, even when we're going through something difficult, we can still fix our eyes on you and praise you. And when we praise you from the depths of our heart, through our mouths, and through our hands, and through our body, we know that something changes. Lord, we know that you respond to genuine praise and worship.

And, Lord, I just pray, Lord, I ask, Lord, you would strengthen us to do the same, that no matter what song it is or who it's leading, that we would just praise you for who you are and whose we are.