For those of you that are not here for the series we've been preaching, we've been going through the book of Psalms. As you know, there's 150 of them. Today we're on number 134, and it's the last of the 15 Psalms of Ascent, which were the wonderful Psalms that were sung as the pilgrims would go up to the seven feasts at three different times of the year. This morning, before I share anything about the message, I just want to tell you that in Ringgold, Louisiana, on the last day, a little girl, I don't know if she was 10 or 12, she stood up for the special music and she had a ukulele. And normally a ukulele isn't the most wonderful instrument to play. Not in her hands, she could play that thing. And she sang Chris Tomlin's song. Oh, I've heard a thousand stories of what they think you're like. But I've heard the tender whisper of your love in the dead of night, and you tell me that you're pleased and that I'm never alone. You're a good, good father." It's who you are. It's who you are. It's who you are. You're a good, good father, and I'm loved by you. You know, this song, when I got home last night, sat down to spend a little time with the Lord and get ready for preaching today. I just turned on Chris Tomlin, lyrics, chords, and I just sat there. I don't know how many times I sang that song through with Chris Tomlin. Bad voice and all. Why? Because God's been so good to me. He's been so good to me. Have you gone through trials, preacher? Oh, I've gone through many, many dangerous toils and snares, but He's been good to me. And I thought when we went down to Ringgold, if one person would receive the Lord in Louisiana, it would be an incredible, incredible thing. I quit counting after 50. I just quit counting. So many that came to faith in Jesus Christ. And so, I just raise my hands today and say with the psalmist, come bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the holy place and bless the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth. Let's pray and ask the Lord to bless his word, and then we'll share in the second ordinance in this service, the Lord's Supper. Father, you're a good, good Father. Jesus, you're a good, good Savior. Holy Spirit, you're a good, good Comforter. Three in one. One God, three persons. Blessed Trinity, we bless you, lifting our hands today. Use this message in the lives of those of us who believe. Help us learn to bless the Lord. And for those of us that don't know you, may this be a day, Lord, when those that know about you, but they don't know you yet, may it be their day to say yes to Jesus Christ. In whose name we pray, amen. This awesome little psalm is an invitation to come and bless the Lord. It's the last of the fifteen psalms of ascent. One of these fifteen was written by Solomon, four by David, ten I believe were written by Hezekiah, though anonymously, but by context you can tell it's King Hezekiah. He made this one, the last one, short and sweet and ended with a benediction. But I believe Hezekiah's heart as a king was filled. He remembered a day. What a day it was. We read about it in Isaiah 38, 1-6. Oh, how sick King Hezekiah was at the point of death. And we read these words in Isaiah 38, one to six. In those days, Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah, the prophet, the son of Amos came to him and said to him, thus says the Lord, set your house in order for you shall die and you shall not recover. I don't know how many of you have been at the point of death within the last few years. But if you've been there, you know some of what Hezekiah would have had to feel. Close to the point of death, and he was told by God, through the prophet, he wouldn't recover. And then we read, then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord and said, please, O Lord, remember how I've walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and I've done what's good in your sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah, go, that meant go back to Hezekiah's palace, to his house. And say to Hezekiah, thus says the Lord, the God of David, your father, I have heard your prayer. I've seen your tears. Behold, I will add 15 years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city. When Hezekiah wrote this last psalm of ascent, he had to have been thinking of that great day when God turned everything around for him and gave him a new lease on life for 15 more years to praise him down here. And I believe he was even remembering further back when the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, came with his vulgar general, Rabshakeh, And they knew they would take Judah easily. They had faced worse countries, harder countries. They knew they could take Judah. They were bragging. They were boasting. They were taunting King Hezekiah. And in Isaiah 37, 10 to 12, these are the words that they sent to him in a letter. They said, Hezekiah, do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you. by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. of Assyria have done to all lands, devoting them to destruction? And shall you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered them? The nations that my fathers destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezif, and the people of Eden, who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hama? Where is the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Servarvim, the king of Hena, or the king of Eva? You remember what King Hezekiah did when he read that letter? Just taunting him. He said, basically, put your hands up. You're under arrest. Put your hands up. We're taking you. Surrender now. Rather than put his hands up to Sennacherib, he went into the house of the Lord and put his hands up to God. He spread out the letter with his hands lifted before the Lord, and in a nutshell, he said, God, you're a good, good father, and I'm loved by you. And here's the actual words. He said, God, hear all the words of Sennacherib that he is sent to mock the living God. Oh Lord, our God, save us from his hand that all the nations of the earth may know that you alone are the Lord. And then what did King Hezekiah do? He went home, he went home and wrung his hands, right? He went home and went to bed with all Jerusalem. except for the guards of the walls and the night servants in the house of the Lord." And during the night, I want you to know something happened. Something happened in the night. And I want to tell you that God works the night shift as well as the day shift. How many of you are aware of that? How many of you men or ladies work the night shift? Just let me see how many night shifters we have. Wow. You know, God's not only the God of the day, but the God of the night. He works the night shift. Aren't you glad? I want you to know, on May 25th, a week ago, this past Wednesday, our little 22nd grandchild was born, Abram Bo Ross. We were thrilled. I thought, how wonderful. And it wasn't long after that, that I got a text from Jenny that said, pray, pray, pray. I think I know what that means. When you have a trilogy of pray, pray, pray, you know it's urgent. We're taking him from the birthing center in Wichita to the neonatal ICU. There he was hooked up to oxygen, blood was taken, labs were read. He apparently had aspirated something, but whatever happened. Nightfall came. And Jenny texted me again and just said, pray, pray, pray. I prayed a lot, but you know what? I was thankful that there were doctors and nurses that were working the night shift. There are people here that the psalmist is talking about that work the night shift. Come bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord who stand by night in the house of the Lord. So we prayed. And what Hezekiah did, I did. I finally just went to sleep. Couldn't pray anymore, because the scripture says, you don't have to stay up, He stays up for you. Psalm 121 verse 4 says, Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. I slept, Hezekiah slept, God worked for Abram, and seven days later, this past Wednesday, he went home. What happened for Hezekiah? I'll tell you what happened for Hezekiah is God did a big thing in the night shift. The scripture says in 2 Kings 19, 35 to 37, and that night the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early the next morning, including the king Hezekiah, behold those soldiers now that were ready to ravage all of Judah and Jerusalem. They were dead on the ground. Sennacherib the king managed to escape. He went home and lived in Nineveh, not very long, as he was worshiping in the house of his god, Nisroch, his idol god. Adramelech and Sherezer, his sons, struck him down with a sword and escaped into the land of Ararat, and Ezra had his son reigned in his stead. I want to tell you today, I'm so thankful to God for those of you that are willing to work the night shift. I'm glad for those of you that are willing to work the night shift. And I want to also say, I want all of you to know that working the night shift is another way of saying you're willing to work behind the scenes where not most people can view you. You're working behind the scenes. As we look at this psalm today, it's a pilgrim psalm, the final song of ascent ends with a benediction. There are some lessons I want us to look at, just three very important lessons that I want us to see and then we'll share communion together. What are these three important lessons from this little passage of three verses? First of all, God wants us to bless Him even when others are not watching us. God wants us to bless Him even when others are not watching us. Come bless the Lord, verse 1, all you servants of the Lord who stand by night in the house of the Lord. This is an invitation by Hezekiah and the singing pilgrims to let the night shift know we are praising God for you and we want you to praise God while you're on the night shift. This call went out from the pilgrims who attended the feast. They're probably preparing to go home, back to the grind, back to their farms, back to their jobs. And verse 1 indicates that the pilgrims with King Hezekiah were probably most aware of those that worked the night shift in Jerusalem. Why would that be? I want to give you two suggestions. One of the suggestions How many of you here go on vacation and you leave while it's still dark on the first day? You just take off and you leave before it's daylight. You leave while it's dark. Any of you do that? Look at you, look at you, look at you. What do we do that for? We want to get every ounce out of our vacation. That's what we want. We want to get every ounce of it so we leave really early. So as they're getting ready to leave, they pull up stakes. There's no lights on in Jerusalem except for one place, and they're the temple. There are the lights that had been lit, those olive oil lamps. There they are, and you can see it. And they thought of those servants, those priests, those Levites, those guards who are working the night shift. That's one scenario. Another scenario could be they're having their very last night of worship. They're gathered outside the temple there, and as they're gathered, they're looking. It's dark except for the lights in the temple. And again, they're singing and they're calling out, they're calling out, come, bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord. Come on, come on, maybe come on out here with us who stand by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord. Now I can't tell you which of those is correct or if either of them are, but for some reason their focus is on the night shift. I looked up, in a very important book called The Temple and its Services, Alfred Edersheim. He wrote this book and it's a classic that has more to say about the Jewish background, if you want background material on many of the scriptures, Alfred Edersheim has it. And this is what he says, each guard consisted of 10 men, and there were in all 24 groups of 10 men there were 240 Levites and 30 priests who were on duty at night how many is that my math is correct 270 270 on the night shift and they're saying you you night shift people come bless the Lord all you servants of the Lord who stand by night in the house of the Lord now Though I don't know for sure if Alfred Edersheim is right. He probably knows better than anyone else. But I want to address those of you who serve the Lord when no one else is watching. It's not just pastors. It's not just elders. It's not just deacons. People in the nursery. People who are Sunday school teachers. People who are going to Moldova. So many different people are serving the Lord behind the scenes. It's clear that Hezekiah and the pilgrims were addressing them and what is easy to happen at night? Have you ever noticed on the night shift or if you ever stay up late that our language can degenerate? Have you ever noticed that as night falls Language can degenerate. That's maybe one of the reasons. Keep blessing the Lord. Don't let your language degenerate. Maybe it was for the guards. Don't go to sleep on your watch. Don't go to sleep. You say, well, why would that be? Because when do people on the night shift sleep? When do they sleep? Oh, they don't, I heard. They're supposed to sleep during the day. Is it easy to sleep during the day? Try to block everything out. It's hard. That's one of the reasons probably they're being addressed. Another danger would be just the ritual. There are certain things that you do, that as you do them, you just do them over and over and over, and all of a sudden, you become slack in your business. You're not as careful. You're not doing it with as clear a conscience. And for some reason, they are singling out the night shift. For those of us serving the Lord in a full-time way because of our divine calling, I ask you, do we resist the temptation not to let the familiar breed contempt in us? Would we ever try to get by without being diligent, without having clean hands and pure hearts? When no one else is watching or listening, do we who serve the night shift for God, Are we willing to say, Lord, anyone can know what I do. I'm not afraid of them knowing what I do at night. Are we clear? Are we regular? Are we thankful? Are we passionate? Are we sincere? So this first lesson, especially, I'm going to dedicate to pastors, secretaries, elders, deacons, deaconesses, teachers, nursery workers, worship leaders, youth leaders, Dana, and those going to Moldova? How is our walk with God on the night shift when most other folks don't see us? Start off with men in ministry, elders, pastors, deacons. How do we speak to our wife and our children? How do we speak when no one else is watching? I would ask you Sunday school teachers, what are we doing on our night shifts? Would we blush if folk would know? Have we prepared adequately? Are we diligent for Jesus? Are our hands and our relationships pure before God, who is up at night, He sees? Do we want to run and hide when we think of God's people calling us to come bless the Lord? Are we living a sham? How many of us If God would just throw on what's happened within the last 72 hours, up before everyone else would shudder and run out of this room. What are we doing on the night shift? What are we doing on the night shift? Are any of us ashamed? God is calling out to us. We sing a song often on Sunday nights. Jesus is calling out to me, my soul longs for a city of peace. I love that song. But there'll be no peace for us if we neglect holiness and purity and devotion to God when others are not watching. So this first message that I give to you is for those of us that work the night shift, if you will, for those of us that the Lord knows We're not always being watched, but God sees us. What are we doing? I ask you, God wants us to bless him even when others aren't watching. Number two, God wants us to get our hands up in his house and bless the Lord. Now, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know why this is the case, but everywhere I've been, when I was in Ringgold, Louisiana, I don't know if you would notice that this could be possible, Steve, because you're from Louisiana. Not many people raise their heads. In fact, when I looked around, one other person on the last day I saw raising his hands, and I went up right beside him and stood right beside him, so he wasn't standing there alone. For some reason, raising our hands to bless the Lord There are some inhibitions that we have. But I want to ask you a question. Verse 2 says, lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord. Is that an optional suggestion? It isn't. Is it a strong recommendation? It isn't. You know what it is? It's a command. It's a command. Who is it addressed to? Well, is it men? Is it women? Is it young people? Is it children? And I find verse one comes in handy. Come bless the Lord. Who? All you servants of the Lord. Who should raise their hands and bless the Lord? All of us. But maybe you say, Pastor, that's Old Testament. We're New Testament saints, okay? Let's just hurry over to the New Testament. Let's go over to 1 Timothy 2.8 where Paul says, I desire then that in every place men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling. Where? In every place. But you say, at least that lets us ladies off the hook. Because it says, men, know all you servants of the Lord. Hezekiah and the pilgrims are singing to the servants of the Lord. They're busy in the ritual that they're doing. They're busy in watching and guarding. But he says, come bless the Lord. Unite servants, you priests, you Levites, you guards. Bless the Lord. Lift up your hands to God. And we can't lift up our hands if they aren't clean, if they're angry hands, if they're quarreling hands. You know, I believe it's really easy, it's really easy for all of us to have a Sunday image or a church image and a private image. It's different. How many of you think it's possible? Is that possible? It's very possible. It's possible to smile in church. It's possible to lift our hands. And yet we've been quarreling on the way to church and we've been angry and what we've said to one another. He says, lift up holy hands without wrath, without anger or doubting or without quarreling. Strong words, strong words. God wants clean hands, completely yielded hands, ready to do his bidding and consecrated, surrendered hands. Josh, I'm so glad you were here. I didn't see you in the first service. I told Blake and I told Dave Harris, thanks for working on that door. I want to thank you for all the work you've been doing. But Josh is a state policeman. You don't mind if I share that with people? Do you ever ask someone to get out of the car and put up their hands? You've done that more than once. I figured you had done it quite often. Is it optional when he says to someone, get out of the car and put up your hands, is it optional? Can they go ahead and just keep their hands in their pocket and say, I'd rather not? You know what? It's not optional. The world over, there is a complete, unconditional sign of surrender. Complete and total surrender is lifting up your hands. There are times, beloved, when we simply need to lift up our hands. Last night, as I wanted to go over this message, I couldn't even go over it. I couldn't even go over it for a while. All I could do is There are certain times when you can't keep your hands down. You just have to bless the Lord. I thought of all that God had done in 10 days. I thought of the people that come to Him. I thought of what He'd done for our little grandchild. I thought of a lot of other things that I could share with you. I don't have time to now. And all I could do was just raise my hands. Come bless the Lord. Are you glad you're saved? How many of you are glad you're saved? Lift your hands. Lift your hands. Lift your hands. When do I have to do that? You don't have to. You don't have to. You don't have to obey God. You don't have to do what he says. But you know what? There are times when he prompts, and it has nothing to do with me looking over here at Derek and making sure, is he doing it? And then I might. It isn't. Scott's doing it, so I will. No, no, I can't go that way. I'm not looking around. My mind is on the Lord. Maybe there's a Holy Spirit prompting that he's given me. He's answered a huge prayer. And when I think about it, it just keeps coming back to me. And all I know to do is raise my hands. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you. Thank you, Lord. I don't deserve your mercies. I don't deserve your mercies. And we're just praying for you, Corey and Mallory, At the end of tomorrow, you'll just be lifting your hands. Lifting your hands. That's our prayer. That's our prayer. Sometimes someone's praying a prayer. It's a prayer you've been praying. It's the very same prayer. And when it happens, you realize you agree. God's spirit bears witness with you and with this other person. Just raise your hand. Thank you, Lord. Same Holy Spirit, same one, telling us to pray for the same thing. It's an agreement prayer. Get your hands up to Jesus. Maybe you're here today and you feel absolutely empty. That's a good time to just lift your hands and say, Lord, fill my cup. Lord, fill my cup. God wants us to bless him even when others are not watching. He wants us to get our hands up in his house and bless the Lord. Thirdly, God wants us to give His benediction to others. His benediction from Him, our Lord and our Creator. Notice verse three. And now, it's not the pilgrims talking to the night shift, it's the night shift talking to the pilgrims and to the king. And they're speaking back and they're saying, may the Lord bless you from Zion. He who made heaven and earth. Now, does anybody know what a benediction is? What's a benediction? What is it? It can be a prayer. It's not just a prayer, though. It's a declaration. Diction is a statement and a benediction, that's a good or a well declaration. It's as simple as this. It's declaring something that you sense God wanting you to do. And I just want to put my hands out to the two of you. And I just want to, sometimes you can touch people, sometimes you just put your hands up and I just say to you, Cory and Mallory, you're a man and woman of God. And I am blessing you with the grace to go through this experience with a confidence in the Lord that on the other side, your hands are going to be raised in thanksgiving for what he has done. That's a blessing. That's a blessing. We can do that with anyone. We can do it. We can do it with our wife. We can do it with our husband. We can do it with our children. We can do it with anyone. One of my favorite benedictions is not at the end of Romans, it's at the first. It says in Romans chapter one, verse 11 and 12, for I long to see you that I may impart or give a benediction to you with some spiritual gift to strengthen you. That is that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. Larry McGehee was in our first service today and I thanked him for this, but I want to thank him again without him being here. He called me a week ago last Thursday, May 26th, and he says, can I take you out for lunch? And I said, I just can't go. I am swamped. But would you pray for the camp meetings for me that they'll go well? I have to get a lot done. Can I have a rain check? He says, yes. And then he said what Larry McGee always does when you ask him to pray. He says, I want to pray right now. So he's on the phone. He prayed right then. He prayed a benediction on the meetings and on my preaching. It was a wonderful thing. It was shortly after that that Alyssa, you were gone and Judy Odogu was here and she came in and we were talking and I said, Please remember, I told her the time change and the time difference. I says, remember to pray over the meetings down in Louisiana. She says, Pastor, I want to pray right now. She prayed right then. Those are benedictions. Those are blessings. They're incredible blessings. And I want you to know many of you were praying. Thank you for the benediction of your prayers. When God leads us to impart a gift from him, a gift of encouragement, we need to do it now. You say, but I don't know what to say. If God is giving you an impulse, go and he will fill your mouth. He'll show you what to say. The blessing is not yours to give without his giving it. If there's a sense in you that you just want to come to somebody and you just say, I just want to bless you. You can just come and do it like this. Alicia, I just bless you in your future work as a doctor. Always give God the glory for all of your abilities. Never think it's just you. He's made it possible. Do your work always thinking about Him. Even pray before you do surgery or before you do any kind of a hard procedure. Talk to God. That's my blessing for you. We can talk to one another. That's a blessing from God. God wants us as his people to bless one another. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth. When you bless someone, you know what happens to your pride? It's in the trash. Don't go back and pick it up. You're humble before the Lord. You know you couldn't give it without him. When you encourage others, joy breaks out. Use benedictions that prove you're surrendered to the Lord who made heaven and earth the creator, to the one who's redeemed us. I urge you, bless little children, bless older children, bless young people, bless the graduates, bless people that are getting married, bless people that are getting engaged, bless people that are older. You can even bless people and sing a song to them. If you ever wanna just think you're doing something a lot that's a lot of fun, I'll enjoy it. How many of you know the song, Jesus Loves the Little Ones Like Me? Any of you know that song? Good. Come up to me and say, can I sing this to you, pastor? And I'll say, sure. And just sing it this way. Jesus loves the older ones like you, you, you. Jesus loves the older ones like you, you, you. Older ones like you ought to love him too. Jesus loves the older ones like you, you, you. You know, there's certain things that just stand out to you. Going to Moldova, we all had to get insurance. Do you know which one of all of us had to pay the most insurance? About triple what everybody else paid I had to pay. Because I'm 71 years old. You see, I want you to understand that we all need blessings. We never get too old. We need people to come up and bless us and tell us things God has given to them for us. Come bless the Lord, all you servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion, he who made heaven and earth. Now I'm gonna ask you right now, if you'd bow your heads, I wanna give an invitation. I wanna give an invitation to those of you that may have a struggle with following through with this message. It may be just the lifting of your hands at times when God wants you. It may be that you don't want to bless others, you don't want to do that, but it's not an option. God says, come, bless the Lord. May the Lord bless you. It's something He wants us to do. I just wonder how many of you here, I asked it in the first service, and I want to ask it here now. How many of you right now would just say, I really am here, I'm needy today, and I need a blessing. I need a blessing from God. Would you pray for me? And if you're here and God's especially saying to you, I need a blessing, would you stand? Those would stand right now if you just say, I need a blessing. Right now. Anyone else? Just stand right now if God's speaking to your heart. It won't wait very much longer. I need a blessing from God to stand. I need a blessing. Anyone else? Father, I pray right now in Jesus' name for Derek and for Michelle and for Joe and Sophia. I pray for Sarah. I pray for Rubia. I pray for Denise. I pray for both emeritus. for Kirk and for Shelly. I pray for Mallory. Lord, I pray for those that wish they'd stood but they haven't stood. They need a blessing. Lord, I've named their name before you. You know what their need is right at this moment. I bless you for blessing them. Please pour out your spirit upon them. Pour out your Spirit on them today. Meet them at the place of their need. In Jesus' name I bless them. Amen. You may be seated.