Thriving Through Midnight in our life through Fellowship with Christ

Acts. 16:25-28

Midnight in the context is actually in the middle of the night.

But also, it is metaphorically and symbolically to teach us a deeper lesson of the power of being in an intimate relationship with God.

God enables the impossible to be possible in the life of those who are his own, who trust in Him.

Generations in the past would say, serving God will pay off after a while, but the Bible tells us that serving the Lord will pay off now.

Symbolically midnight is when trial, tribulation and hardship flood our life. It is when everything that can go wrong, goes wrong!

Midnight is when there is no sunshine in your life and the rain and storms keep on raging and peace is nowhere to be found.

Someone here today is experiencing midnight right now!
  • An unfavorable doctor’s report
  • Drowning in financial debt with no hope
  • Family is falling apart all around you
  • Emotional and mental unrest

Paul and Silas have a legal dilemma. They have been labeled as law breakers, cast in jail as common criminals, this is their midnight and it shows us how to thrive in and through our midnight.

Not just survive but thrive, listen a relationship with God gives us thriving power to be blessed and not stressed regardless of where we are.

Christ in our life is the different maker, he will turn our midnights into day and our sorrow into joy.

There is a blessing in this lesson to help us to thrive through our midnight.
  1. Fellowship with God is to have our mind stayed of Jesus- vs. 25
  2. Fellowship with God helps us to worship rather than worry- vs. 25
  3. Fellowship with God is to watch God work- vs.26-28

All of us are going to have some dark days and some restless nights.

When you are on fire for God and passionate about doing ministry for the Lord, you are a candidate for the workers of iniquity to persecute you.

They will bring darkness into your life to stop your ministry work for the Lord.

Our relationship with God enables us to thrive through our midnight in our life

 
  1. Fellowship with God is to have your mind stayed on Jesus- vs. 25.

“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard them”

  1. Their actions reveal their state of mind.
  2. When your mind stays on God, you minister to and for Him.
  • The prophet Isaiah is no stranger to persecution and hardship tells us how to thrive at midnight, Isa. 26:3, “Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.”
  • An old negro spiritual song, “I woke up the morning with my mind stayed of Jesus.”
  1. To thrive not just survive through your midnight is to keep your eyes on Jesus and not on your trouble.
  • Mind stays on your trouble produces stress and unrest.
  • Mind stayed on Jesus produces perfect peace in the middle of the storm
 
  1. Fellowship with God helps us to worship rather than worry- vs. 25.

“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard them.”

  1. When midnight falls in our lives the natural man’s response is to worry, but we are not in the natural, but spiritual.
  • The natural man thinks the worst is going to happen.
  • The spiritual man knows the Light of heaven will light up your midnight.
  1. There is someone inside of us that will not let the stuff around us cause us to take our eyes off Jesus.
  2. At midnight is a good time to praise and worship God.
  • We are not Israel, who told their captives, how can we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?
  • But our DNA traced back to west Africa and the slave plantation in the United States, where our ancestors chose to worship rather than worry in the cotton fields and every other field.
  • The reason was they had an undeniable, unbreakable relationship with God
They could sing, he walks with me; he talks with me, he tells me I am his own, and the joy that we shared as we tarried there no other has ever known

At midnight is a good time to praise and worship God!


 
  1. Fellowship with God is to watch God work- vs. 26-27

“And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and every one’s bands were loosed.”

  1. Suddenly, quickly the LORD of heaven and earth showed up at midnight in a cold jail cell.
  • Worship and praise invites God into our midnight.
  1. When God shows up in worship his power shows up.
  • The earthquake is God’s power that shook the foundations of the prison.
  • Everyone that was bound, the power of God loses them at midnight.
  1. When you are in fellowship with God, during worship we have the joy of watching God work!
  • Every now and then God will show himself strong and mighty
  1. At midnight in your life when God is working, nobody wants to leave the worship celebration.

The chains that held Paul and Silas fell out, the prisoners chains fell off, but nobody left.

God is a very present help in the time of trouble!

So, when midnight comes don’t you worry, don’t you fret, because God is a right now God, and he will take care of you

Whatever be tide God will take care of you, under his wings love abide God will take care of you!