Magnify At Midnight // Fresh Wind Fresh Fire Week 3

All right, if you have your Bibles, you can open up to Acts chapter 16 today, Acts chapter 16. We're starting week three of our series, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. Really, it's a series on worship and prayer. And I, today, am so excited that I get to preach the power of praise. How many know that there's power in your praise? Oh, come on, I'm gonna say that again. There is power in your praise. Acts chapter 16, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and start turning there. Paul's ministry all throughout the book of Acts was marked by many miracles and signs and wonders. But in every miracle and every sign and every wonder, there was also some riots that were happening. Paul was able to stir up some trouble in everywhere that he went. In Corinth, there was riots. In Emphasis, there was riots. In Rome, there were riots. Because for every action of the Spirit, there was an equal or opposite reaction of unholy spirits to the Bible called demons. And what Paul does in his ministry is he stands right in the middle of this reaction, in the middle of the darkness, and he calls that darkness out, and he brings that darkness into the light, and he lets Jesus stand victorious over it.

And he does it through the power of praise. Acts chapter 16, I'm gonna pick up in verse 16 today. So let me just set a scene for what's about to happen. Here's what the writer says. He says, once we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who, this is really important, it says had a spirit. Some other Bible translations will say this, had a spirit of divination by which she was able to predict the future. Now, this is one of those things like you gotta kinda like nerd out, be a Bible nerd to see this. What's interesting is what gets translated as a spirit of divination in the Greek, it literally means this, pneuma pythona, and what that means is python spirits. What the Bible is doing is it's pointing back to the book of Genesis where Satan appears as a servant, and here's what's happening. Everyone else saw the situation that was happening, but Paul sees the spirits behind the situation. You need to know this. Your problems are way more spiritual than you think they actually are. And if you don't win the war in the spiritual before you wage it in the physical, you're gonna waste your whole life trying to apply natural solutions to supernatural problems to no avail.

So what Paul sees here is he goes, wow, there's a spirit behind this situation, and he begins to point that out. It says that she was able to earn a great deal of money for owners by fortune telling. So there's this satanically demon-possessed, empowered fortune teller that's pretty much able to predict the future and make money for people. And she is following Paul around. She is shouting. She's saying, watch this. These men are servants of the most high God. They're telling you the way to be saved. Now, if you're smart, you're asking the question this morning, why is a demon shouting something that's true? This is really, really important. Listen to this. Because Satan's goal is to get you away from faith in Christ. And if he has to even say the right thing, but in a repulsive way, he'll do it to keep people from getting to Christ. He just wants people away from Jesus. So she says that she's been doing it for days and days and days, following behind Paul, shouting over and over and over. The moms in the room resonate with this today.

Like your kids are just constantly following behind you. Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom. Like she's getting waterboarded, like inundated one day, right, dads? Like she's just getting overwhelmed with the kids, just telling mom over and over that they need her. And this is what's happening to Paul. I love the Bible. The Bible is so true. It's so honest. It's so funny. It says this, finally, Paul became so annoyed. I love that. He turned around and said to the spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you to come out of her. And at that moment, the spirit left her. And I've said this the last two weeks of this series, but I'll say it again one more time. At the mention of the name of Jesus, even darkness, demons, Satan himself has to flee at the mention of that name. And so what happens is all the people get mad because they're like, man, we just lost our ability to earn money because this lady had this ability to tell the future through fortune telling. And so they whip up this riot. Here we go. Here's Paul's ministry marked by miracles,

but also marked by riots after. The crowd joins in the attack of Paul and Silas. And so the magistrates order them to be stripped and beaten with rods. Now I want you to understand what's actually happening in first century Rome right here. Whenever it says that the Roman magistrates would be there stripping him and beating him. rods, what would happen, I believe they have a picture of it on the screen, there would be these six men that would walk around with what are called lictors. And these lictors, they'd be carrying these rods that would be wrapped in leather. And what they would do, these lictors would take these things and they would literally tie somebody up and beat them. And in this culture, the Jewish humane way of beating somebody was 40 lashes. But the Romans, they did not have that rule. They would just wail as long as they wanted to. Sometimes it was more than 40 times a person would be whipped. Roman historians tell us that the beatings were so brutal and so terrible that the rib cages of men would sometimes be caved in, broken ribs, difficult to breathe. They'd have the flesh ripped off of their backs, sometimes raped off of this beating. And then watch what happens. The Bible emphasizes how bad the beating was. Bible scholars say this was probably the worst beating that the apostle Paul ever received. It says there's only one time in scripture where Luke says this, and it's this text here, that Paul was severely flogged, beaten in this way, thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Watch this. When he received these orders, he put them in the inner cell. So Roman prisons had two holding cages. One was an outer cage, and then one was like max security. It was the inner cell for confinement. There was no light in there. There was no toilet. It was just a hole that you were chained to. And there's the apostle Paul. Again, just imagine him, brutal, rough, terrible beating that he has just endured, now placed in stocks. I believe they have a picture of these stocks. And the stocks were done in a way that the legs of the man would be strapped to the top areas of it, and their head would be in the middle. So they would stretch their legs out, the left leg here, the right leg here,

as far as they could so the muscles would contract. This is a man in an immense amount of pain. And this is what the text says. At midnight, the Bible says, Paul looks over at Silas. Again, legs stretched out, skin has been ripped off of his back, broken ribs. And he says this in Acts 25. He says this, that Paul and Silas began singing hymns to God. These men, they immediately go into worship. And here's what you need to understand. When you find yourself in a place where you can worship in a war, if you get to a spot in your life where you can magnify in the midnight hour of your life, see everything begins to change. Everything begins to change. Now, some of you saying, Pastor Dan, why did you share all of that information with me today? That was extremely graphic. Why I showed that to you today, I believe they have the next picture for you, is because this is the image we have of Paul and Silas, especially if you grew up in children's church. Like flannel graph ministry, halo around their head, just singing and happy, nothing wrong. No, no, no. These dudes were going through immense pain and they are worshiping, capital W, worshiping through pain. Now, can we emotionally shift gears for a moment and can I preach to you today the power of praise, the power of praise. When you're in a situation beyond your control, you can turn worry into worship. You can magnify in the midnight hour. There are three things that will begin to happen in your life. Number one, you got to get this if you're taking notes and I sure hope you are. The first one is this. Number one, worship changes you. Can anyone testify to the fact that worship changes you? See, a Christian is a person who understands that there's a difference between happiness and joy. Oh, happiness, that's based on your happenings of life. So when things are happening to you that are good, oh, you can have happiness. And then when things are happening to you that are bad, you can't have happiness. But I'm so thankful that as a follower of Jesus, happiness is not based on happenings, but watch this, joy is based on Jesus. The joy of the Lord is my strength. And what happens is when you have joy, when I'm seeking joy internally, bad things can be happening out there and it can be a war and violent and turbulent out there, but it can be a worship service in here. And Paul and Silas understood this, that worship is the attitude that brings us into joy. Now, I want to show you how this works today. Would every person in person, online, in additional seating, would you help me with this today? In a prison cell online, would you go ahead and pull out your index

finger and hold it up just like this? All right, now here's what I need you to do with that index finger. I need you to move it as close as you can to your eye so that you can try to block me out. I want you to only be able to see your index finger and not be able to see me. Now, what is bigger? Your index finger or me? Last time I checked this morning, 5'11", 170 pounds. I weighed myself before coming to church. Much bigger than your index finger. But here's what I'm getting at. A small thing held close to the eye can block out the huge thing. See, what people do when they worry is what you're doing is you're taking small things, you're taking small problems, and you're holding them close to the retina, the eye of your soul, and the small things can block out a huge thing, the person of God, the character of God, the promises of God. Oh, but when you worship, the exact thing begins to happen. God becomes magnified. God becomes big. And suddenly the problems of your life that seemed so big, suddenly are so much smaller than the God that you serve. David says this in Scripture. He says, O magnify the Lord. Can we say that together?

O magnify the Lord. Let us exalt His name forever. No one besides the Lord. Let us magnify the Lord. Let me illustrate it to you this way. Down front, there is a man with a camera. And he's got a camera, and he's going to zoom in really, really close. Wow, that's getting really close. It's starting to get a little bit awkward. Is that the tightest you can go? All right, please don't look at the pores of my face or the hairs that are on my nose. I know I'm getting a little bit older, okay? But what's he doing with that camera? He's taking a camera body that's there, and he's standing at a distance from me. But with the lens, he is magnifying. He is able to make an image much bigger than it is with that lens. And that's what you do. Oh, when you get in the presence of the Lord, suddenly your problems begin to shift. Your problems begin to seem so much smaller. Your problems do not become the focus. Why? Because you make God the focus and not your problem. O magnify the Lord. Let us make God bigger in our life and our current circumstance or situation

because worship changes you. Number two, let me read it to you, and then I'll show you point number two. So a lot of people miss this. It says, you know, at midnight, they're praying and they're singing hymns to God, but we miss this. And then it says this, that the other prisoners were listening to them. Can I say the second thing today? Here's point number two. Your worship is a witness. Your worship is a witness. Okay. Now for the next 10 minutes in the sermon, things might get a little bit awkward for some people in the room today. Okay. So I just need to pastor you and teach you for a few minutes. You all okay if I teach you what the Bible says concerning worship? I believe there's a couple reasons why people don't worship the way the Bible tells us to worship. The first is this. Maybe you are here today and you have no church background or no affiliation with church or with the Lord or don't know anything about God. Nobody ever taught you how to worship. Nobody's ever told you what

scripture actually says concerning worship. And that might be some people in the room today. The second group of people is very common as well because you did grow up in some church background and you'd say, growing up in church, we didn't worship like you worship here at Calvary Church. We didn't worship like the Bible describes. And so again, I want to say something that might sound like it kind of has a little bit of an edge to it, but I promise it doesn't. It means, I'm saying it with all love and all sincerity this morning, zero judgment here, but some people don't understand biblical worship because you've accidentally been more influenced by a denomination than biblical doctrine. So again, we just need to say today, what does the Bible say about this? What does the Bible say about worship? So, there are seven words in the scripture for praise. One of the words is so funny. The word praise in Hebrew, one of the versions of the word is the word tehillah. Tehillah. That's my favorite version. In Psalm 34, it says this,

I will extol the Lord at all times. His tehillah will always be on my lips. I just think that's hilarious. Some of y'all are like, you love to worship. I love to worship. Not that kind of worship, man. Tehillah, not the other word that I said there. Okay? But the most common one is the word halal. And this is from the Bible. And here's what it means. To shine. Hence, to make a show. To boast. And to thus be clamorously foolish. To rave. To celebrate. So that definition, let's just be honest, that definition looks a whole lot more like an Eagles game on Sunday afternoon than a church service that we're in. That's what you're seeing. Here, let me boil this down. Let me make it real simple for you. All biblical worship is, is expressing love to God. It's expressing love to God. And I know as I'm saying that today, some of you are saying, wait, wait, wait, Pastor Dan. I'm just a little bit more of an introverted person, though. That's okay for you to worship. That way, I'm outgoing.

You like to talk to people. You like to get along and get with people and connect with people. You are expressive You like to sing, I'm just a little bit more introverted, it's not really my style. And let me just say this to you with all love and sincerity, that there are times for reverence in our walk with the Lord. There are times where we need to be still and know that He is God. So there are times for reverence, but there's also moments where we should express with our bodies what we feel in our hearts. And for some reason, your relationship with God is the only relationship where people think it's okay to actually separate affection and expression. So literally, think about it, any other relationship in your life, if you have affection, it comes out as expression. Here, I'll illustrate it to you this way. I get home from work, and I barely even open the door, and I hear my daughter, Andy Rose, screaming, Dad, you're home! She runs right up to me, most of the time she's got her Elsa dress on, she gives me a big hug and a kiss. Why? Because she loves me, and that affection is shown with expression. If I were to see a guy from our church out at a mall or the grocery store, that affection is going to come out as expression. I'm going to walk up to them, give them a handshake, a little go for the hug, two taps on the back, not three, because three's kind of weird. You know what I'm saying? But that affection is going to come out in expression. Okay, men, let me challenge you with this thought today. Let's just say you came home from work one week, and your wife said to you, hey babe, totally attracted to you. I love you so much.

I'm like all in on our marriage in every single way. But from now on, I'm not going to express that to you physically anymore. I'm just attracted to you in my heart. I hear some ladies laughing, and only the ladies in the room right now, because men would not be okay with that. So I just want to point this out to you. In every single relationship in your life, whenever there's affection, there's this expression that comes out. And God's just saying, God's just saying, I want the same thing in your life as you express worship to me. As Scripture says, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind. Those are all the inside. But then let it come out with all of your strength. That word in the Greek is mahode. It means all of your muchness. Not everything that has breath. Praise the Lord. As the book of Hebrews says, offer to God a sacrifice of praise. So again, here's the question. What's the Bible say about worship? And then how do we offer to God a sacrifice of praise? Again, let me just say just a few things, straightforward Bible teaching. Number one, the Bible commands us to sing. And I just want to point this out to you. The Bible commands us to sing. It doesn't suggest us to. Doesn't gently nudge us to do it. Doesn't say if you want to do it at this certain time, you can. Doesn't say if you like this song, but not the others, you can sing on the song that

you like. It commands us to sing. And let me just interject this little thought right here, that we have become such a self-focused, self-centered culture today. That the worship of self is the greatest worship in our culture. It's all about self-actualization. It's all about self-love. It's all about self-care. We take selfies. We don't take youies. It's everything is about me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And watch this. Here's my fear. Here's my fear is that it's actually worked its way into our Christianity so that whenever we read the commands of Bible, we take them as suggestions or options instead of the command of scripture. And it doesn't matter even if we want to do it or don't want to do it. Oh, there's going to be blessings that come when we follow what scripture says, but if the Bible commands us to do it, we're called to do it. And so in this area, the Bible commands us to sing. Here's what it says in scripture. Oh, come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving and extol Him with music and song. Now I want to just point this out to you. Notice in the text it says joyful noise. It didn't say beautiful noise. That should be comforting to some today. So that's number one. Number two, the Bible commands us to cheer.

The Bible commands us to cheer. Check this out. This is Psalm 47. Oh, clap your hands, all you people. Shout unto God with a voice of triumph. I love that. Clap your hands, all you people. One of my favorite worship songs that we'll sing here from time to time is the song Living Hope. And I love that song. I love the chorus of the song. But my favorite lyrics of that song are the verse three when it says, then came the morning that sealed the promise. Your buried body began to breathe and out of the silence, the roaring lion declared the grave has no claim on me. And it's amazing. Every single time we see that song, just like what happened, the room begins to clap and celebrate. Why? Because cheering is a natural response to victory. And again, I know some of you, you are probably going to come up to me after service today and say, Pastor, that just ain't my personality. Just ain't going to do it. Now that's what that person is going to say at 1120 once service ends today, but here's a picture of what that guy is going to be like at 130 during the Eagles game today. Come on, we clap and shout when the Eagles beat the Cowboys. How about we clap and shout because Jesus defeated death, hell, sin, and even Satan himself. Come on, I ain't going to let no rock take my place. I think Jesus deserves our best praise this morning.

Come on and give him a clap of praise. The Bible says we should do that. We should clap. Number three, the Bible commands us to lift our hands sometimes. Okay, Psalm 63 says this, I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. Now again, this can be confusing for some people, especially some of you that are new to faith, new to this church. And again, I'm not trying to push you, I'm just saying, what is the Holy Spirit nudging you to do? What's the next step that you can take today in your worship? Because the Bible does command us to do that. And listen, we naturally lift our hands to celebrate. Let me tell you some good news today. I just said it again a couple minutes ago when I was talking about the victory we have. But if you're a follower of Jesus, if you're a Christian, listen, we are winners. We're on the winning team. In the end, Satan, sin, hell, and the grave are defeated, and we will be victorious. So why is the church the only place where we don't celebrate and act like we're victorious? You watch any football game, go to any sporting event, whenever they score that touchdown or wherever they score that goal, here's what the fans look like, especially those that are in the end zone. They all lift their hands to celebrate. It's a natural response to victory. It's a natural response to winning. So we raise our hands to celebrate the victory we have in Christ. Why do we raise our hands? We also raise our hands to testify. Okay, so if you were in a courtroom setting, when a witness takes the stand, the judge will have a person raise their right hand and swear to something.

And what that person is doing by raising their right hand is they're testifying and saying, everything that I'm going to say is true, and I will testify to that. And so when we see people, as we are worshiping during a time of worship here at church, and they're singing, Waymaker, Miracle Worker, Promise Keeper, Light in the Darkness, and they lift their hands. Or we're singing, He is exalted, the King is exalted on high, and they're lifting their hands. Or as they're singing, There's Nothing Better Than You, I've Tasted and Seen, and they're lifting their hands. They're testifying to say, listen, I've tried everything else in this life. I tried success, I tried people's approval, I tried drugs and alcohol, I tried relationships, and I'm here to testify today. None of that worked. None of that could fill the Christ-shaped void that He can fill. And I'm testifying to the fact that Jesus is the only one who can save. We raise our hands to testify. And then here's the other reason, we raise our hands to surrender. In every nation, the international sign of surrender, if somebody were to pull out a gun and aim it at you, is to lift both of your hands. What are you saying? You're saying, I surrender. So sometimes when people lift their hands in worship, they're lifting their hands, and they're going, God, any part of me that is resistant to your goodness, to your purpose, to your will, I'm laying that down. Lord, I'm surrendering it to you as a child of God. Your will, your plan is the best plan. So we celebrate, we testify, we surrender. We celebrate, we testify, we surrender. We clap our hands, we sing out loud, and we lift our hands. Again, I know some of you are saying today, that just ain't me.

I'm not gonna do those things. I'm not willing to do those things. Can I just gently say something back to you? It ain't all about you. In fact, remember how we started today. Remember point number two, your worship is a witness. Your worship is a witness. What if somebody saw the way that you were worshiping in a church service today and did not know Jesus, and that was an example to them that God is really real? I see this in 1 Corinthians 14. It says, but if all prophesy, and all prophesy means, just means to proclaim. But if you're proclaiming, prophesying in front of unbelievers, and they don't understand these things while they're in your meeting, they'll be convicted of sin and judged by what you say. And as they listen, their secret thoughts will be exposed, and they will falter. knees and worship God declaring, God is truly here amongst you. The worship of the people matters. The worship of the room at the 10 a.m. matters. The worship of the additional seating room matters. It's a witness to a lost and dying world that this Jesus thing is really real. That we can testify and say, God has changed my life. I pray when we leave this church service today, if you are new, I don't even care. I don't care if you remember my name. I don't care if you remember everything that I preached. I hope you don't leave here saying, wow, what a great message today or the worship team sounded good. I pray you leave this place today saying, I encountered the presence of the Lord there and I saw a church full of people. I don't know if I believe everything that they're saying or doing, but I saw a whole bunch of church people actually act like they believed it in their life.

Your worship is a witness. Your worship is a witness. Watch this. I see this illustrated in verse 30 of our text. Here's what it says. The jailer hears their worship and it says he called for the lights. He rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas and then brought them out and asked, sirs, what must I do to be saved? After hearing the worship of Christians, he goes, these guys got something I don't have. Our worship is a witness. Our worship is a witness. And then here's number three. You got to understand this. And this is really important. This is critical because worship is warfare. Worship is warfare. So these guys start worshiping. And as soon as they start to worship, it's verse 26 of this text. It says 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. Listen, spiritual problems require spiritual solutions. And if you spend your whole life giving natural solutions to spiritual problems, you're going to live your life in futility and defeats. And I don't understand how it happens. I don't understand how it all works. All I know is when I look at scripture is when we are commanded to start worshiping, worship changes things in the spiritual realm. It starts affecting things differently. You look in the Old Testament, King Hezekiah, he put the worshipers in the front of the

battle. Why? Because he knew this. We have to win the war in the spiritual before I wage war in the physical. It was when the people of Israel gave that shout of praise at Jericho, then the walls came tumbling down. And in Acts chapter 16, we just read it. It's when they began singing hymns and songs of praise in a pitch black cell, worshiping their God. That's when the earthquake comes. That's when the chains are broken. And so I just believe this, worship is our warfare. It's our warfare. I don't know what battles you're facing right now. I don't know what struggles you have going on in your life. I don't know what war the enemy is trying to wage against you in this season. I just know your battle is won in worship. Your battle is won when you get on your knees and you lift up praise to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And you focus not on your problems, but you focus on how big your God is to the only one that can save, the only one that can set free, the only one that can ever deliver. Worship is warfare.