This morning. Come on. There’s no place like God’s [Music] house. What a privilege to be here. Stay standing if you would for the reading of God’s word. It’s an absolute privilege to be here. I’ve known Pastor Kevin and Sheila um since I was about this high. And so, they’ve been um in my world and they’ve graciously allowed me and my wife and our church and our team to be in their world. And if you are new here, uh I just want to tell you that you have found a house with pastors who are humble and faithful and hardworking and steadfast and they believe in people and they love people and they took a chance on a couple of kids from Spokane, 10 years ago. Pastor Kevin and Sheila, we love you. We’re grateful for you.

I’m going to tell you something that I believe about you, uh, Champion Center, cuz what you believe about something determines how you approach it. So, I’m going to tell you what I believe about you. That you didn’t come here this morning to hear a TED talk. You didn’t come here to hear the thoughts and the whims of some guy from Spokane, but you came here to commune with the spirit of the living God through his word. And his word and the wisdom of his word is the only thing by his spirit that can shape you and change you from the inside out.

And so I come from a church that hollers at the preacher. We call it the preachback. We say preaching is a team sport. Um, it’s not more holy, it’s just more fun. And if you think church is boring, try saying amen. You might have you some fun in Jesus name. Shall we jump into God’s word uh together?

Acts chapter 16 verse 25 says about midnight. Somebody say about midnight. We’re going to talk about midnight today. About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them. They’re in prison while this is going on. And suddenly, somebody say suddenly. Suddenly. Yeah, you’re getting it. Suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison, the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. Pastor Roger preached my message during the little encouragement time. I’m like why am I even up here? He just did it.

So this message is for everybody who maybe came in a little extra heavy today. Maybe you’re facing decisions that loom large. You’ve got responsibilities. You’ve got family. You’re experiencing loss. There’s some uncertainty in your life. This one’s for you. Midnight is not just a time on the clock. Midnight in scripture is a metaphor for the moments when life feels the heaviest.

Let’s talk about midnight. Is that okay? You want to talk about midnight? I’m going to give you some hacks today to thrive. I just need to survive. That you could thrive at midnight.

So, midnight might be the diagnosis that you didn’t expect. It might be the heartbreak that you didn’t see coming. It might be the anxiety that won’t let you sleep. The depression that tells you you’re done. The pain that was handed to you. Or check this. Maybe the pain that you handed to somebody else and you’re carrying the weight of that. Regardless of the particulars of your situation, midnight is when you feel stuck. It’s when hope seems like it clocked out a little bit early that day. It’s when you start questioning if you’re ever going to make it out. It’s what you didn’t see coming, what you didn’t expect.

And Paul and Silas in this text, they had been beaten, humiliated, locked in stocks in the inner prison, completely bound. Midnight representing particularly difficult seasons. And what I want to show you today is that midnight makes a sound. It’s the place where the enemy whispers, “There’s no way forward. This is where it ends. You’re done. This is it.” But midnight is also the place, if you were listening, where the Holy Spirit starts to whisper into your heart and build your faith with things like, “Greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. You’re the head and not the tail. You’re above and not beneath. You are more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. I’m your provider. I’m your protector. I’m your healer. I’m the friend that sticks closer than a brother.”

So maybe you’re not at midnight today. Maybe you’re like, “Pastor, everything in my life is awesome.” Well, I got a promise for you. Midnight is coming. Somebody was like, “Come to Champion Center. It’s so encouraging.” The preacher’s like, “Darkness is coming.” Well, here’s what Jesus said. Yo, in this world, you will experience trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.

So, here’s one of the promises of Jesus that we don’t sing about. You’re going to have midnight. You’re going to have midnight. I’m going to have midnight. She’s going to have mid. We’re all going to experience midnight. But the promise is that he will be with us at midnight. Sustaining, providing, protecting, healing. So, here’s my question for us today. At midnight, what is in your mouth? A different way to ask it could be this. What is your sound?

Because the devil knows something that we forgot. The devil knows God’s word better than a lot of us. And the devil knows something that we forgot. That life and death are in the power of the tongue. Scripture says, “And those who love it will eat its fruit.” So what is your confession at midnight? Fear or faith? Is it worry or is it hope? Is it the darkness of your midnight or is it the goodness of your God? That’s the question that we’re after today.

So, if you’re taking notes when you sit in just a moment, you can write down the title of our message today. It’s called The Sound of Midnight. Can we bow our heads together? Father, thank you for your word. We ask that you would speak to us, minister to our hearts. We need you. Your word is the bread of life. And we ask that as we submit our hearts and our ears and our minds to your word that you would sanctify us, that you would cleanse us, that you would change us, that you would shape us, and that we would look more like you when we leave here than when we walked in in Jesus name. All God’s people said a big old amen and amen.

Hey, why don’t you high-five a few people as you’re grabbing your seat? Tell them you look good. I’m glad you came to church today. If you’re single, get a phone number. Hello. Let’s go. I just hooked you up. You look good. Pastor said I didn’t tell you you look good today. Sorry. Shoot your shot, boy. Do it.

Hey, we have young kids. My wife actually surprised me this morning. I didn’t know she was going to be here. And I came in here during worship and here was my wife standing here. And this is my family. That’s my wife Carly and our four kids, Solomon, Ruth, Ezra, and Abby.

And we have young kids. And so, one of the most common questions in our house is this: What’s in your mouth? Like, it took me until our fourth child to learn that the reason they put things in their mouth is because they’re learning textures and if it’s hot or cold, is it safe, is it not?

And my wife and I were downstairs a few months ago and I was probably encouraging her as she was folding laundry. I probably wasn’t helping, but I’m just an encourager, you know. I do what I can. And our daughter came to the top of the stairs and she’s like, “Dad, you have got to come upstairs. Ezra, who’s our 2-year-old, Ezra is doing something he should not be doing.” And as a parent, you learn to discern the difference in the voice between this is drama or like we should probably go check this out and this was the second one. We should probably go check this out.

So I go upstairs and our 2-year-old Ezra um is feeding he’s eating snap peas and he’s feeding the peas to our three-month-old baby girl. And so I go, “Bro, you cannot put that in her mouth.” And I’m just like, “Dude, you can’t.” I like flip out. I’m just doing a little fish hook, you know, getting the food out. No, no, she’s gonna choke. And he’s so sweetly he looks at me and he goes, “Daddy, Abby, hungry. Abby, cry.” And I was like, “Oh, buddy, that’s so sweet. You were just you were trying to help your sister by giving her food, but you can’t put food in her mouth, dude. She doesn’t have any teeth.”

And he’s like a magnet. My 2-year-old, he’s like a magnet for money. He finds money everywhere. And one day, we were talking and he just started talking to me like this. And he normally just speaks pretty well for a 2-year-old, but he’s talking like this. And I go, “Buddy, what’s in your mouth?” And he goes, “Money.” And like there’s a penny in his hand. I was like, “Bro, you cannot put money in your mouth.” And he goes, “Why?” And I was like, “Well, I don’t have time to explain the particulars of it to you, but suffice it to say, there are things on this penny that you don’t want in your mouth that could make you sick. All kinds of germs. And I don’t want to get crude, but you know what I’m talking about. What’s on pennies?”

And he says something so profound. He looks at it. He goes, “But I can’t see it.” And I was like, “Okay, buddy. I know that you can’t see that what’s on that thing that’s in your mouth is going to hurt you, but I just need you to trust me as your father that I know some things that you don’t know about what’s in your mouth and about how you were created to work and who you are and what you do that if you put that in your mouth, eventually it will hurt you.” You know, the dad who gets super deep with the 2-year-old in every life situation. I’m like, “Listen up, son.”

And he has a friend named Tucker. And he goes, “But Tucker, do it.” And I go, “Buddy, I know I… But here’s the thing. I don’t care how many of your friends around you are doing that same thing and putting that in their mouth. I don’t care if everybody in the world is doing it. You just got to trust me as your father. I know that there’s some things on what’s in your mouth that probably shouldn’t be in there that are going to hurt you. And I just need you to trust me.”

The devil knows something that you and I forgot. That life and death are in the power of our tongue and those who love it will eat its fruit. That’s asking us the question at midnight. What’s in your mouth? What is your confession? Is it faith? Is it fear? Is it hope? Is it worry? Is it the darkness of your midnight? Is it the goodness of your God?

That when you are in heavy seasons facing decisions, the weight of life is here. Did you know that you don’t have to have the same things in your mouth? Your confession does not have to be the same as what the world has taught you and what the people around you are doing. That even in the heaviest of seasons, and the darkest of midnights, you can lift your hands and praise your God and declare his goodness and his faithfulness.

And if you’re having an issue with what I’m saying, let me submit to you this idea that we live in the age of hyper-authenticity. So we say things like, “No, man. I’m just being real. No, I just got to speak my truth. I just got I just got to say what I’m going through. I need to express myself.” I would ask you a question. Which self are you talking about? Because I don’t know if you knew this, but you got two selves at work in you. You were born with a flesh nature. You were born into that. And then when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, you were given a new nature, a spirit nature. And scripture tells us those two things are at war inside of us.

You ever felt that war? Between what you’re feeling and what the lyrics on the screen say. What you’re feeling and what you’re reading, what you’re experiencing and what you believe to be true about God that doesn’t match what you’re experiencing. You ever feel this war? The Apostle Paul did in Romans chapter 7. This is not young upstart church planter Paul. This is at the end of his life having planted churches and been shipwrecked and he talks about this war on the inside of him.

I just need to express myself. I would argue that the realist version of who you are, your spirit nature, actually wants to declare the goodness and the faithfulness of God, regardless of how your flesh is feeling. And if you’ve ever felt that war, it doesn’t mean you don’t have faith. It means you’re human. It means that you are experiencing the same tension that our Savior experienced in the garden when he said, “Father, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from me. But not my will, yours be done.” [Applause]

Maybe all you needed today was to know that it’s actually okay and expressing yourself to declare the goodness and the faithfulness of God regardless of what you see around you. I feel like I can handle midnight a little better when it feels like I had it coming. Like I did something to deserve these chains that I’m in.

But what about when you’re smack dab in the middle of the will of God and midnight still comes? What about when midnight hits and you’ve been doing everything right? You fed your spirit. You trusted God. You were faithful. Midnight still showed up. That’s when it gets real. That’s when your theology has to graduate from Instagram captions to actual confidence in who God is.

Talking about hashtags, bless. Do we still do hashtags anywhere? I don’t know. I’m almost 40. I don’t know what’s cool. You could tell from my skinny jeans. When you were faithful and midnight still showed up, that’s when it gets real. Because it’s one thing to say, “I made this bed and I deserve it.” It’s a whole different thing to be right in God’s will and still find yourself in the heaviness of midnight. And that’s a real test of your faith.

Can I show you a situation in scripture? Joshua 3:15 says, “As soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water.” And then it gives us a little parenthetical. The Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest. Okay, before this, God has told the Israelites, “You are going to go into… He’s told Joshua, you’re going to go across the Jordan, you’re going to march into Canaan, and you’re going to inherit the land that I promised to your fathers.” He didn’t say a word about it being flooded when they got there. Midnight, baby. And some of us, we would have questioned the word of God.

We would have got the board together and see, do we have enough money to build a bridge? We would have hired Roger to engineer something for us. And we would have waited out the season. We would have camped and waited for better times to come. We would have camped and waited for the storm to pass. And some of us are camping in what God has graced us to walk through. That you didn’t expect, that you were right in the middle of the will of God and they still left and the diagnosis still came and the job still evaporated. Who are you going to be when midnight shows up unexpectedly even when you think you didn’t deserve it?

What is your declaration going to be? Because we can ask questions all day long about why am I here and why is this happening to me? That’s a human response. That’s a natural thing. But I can promise you this: if He is not saving you from it, He is shaping you with it. Some of you, that’s going to set you free. If He is not saving you from it, He obviously has enough trust in who you are by His Spirit that you can just keep the confession of your mouth full of faith and one step in front of the other.

And would you maybe… I’m giving you permission right now to stop camping in what God has graced you to walk through. You can move forward by the blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. You’ve been bought with blood and baptized by fire, baby. He is sustaining. He is providing. He is protecting. And you have permission this morning to stop camping in what God has graced you to walk through.

Acts chapter 16, back to our text, verse 25. About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. See, midnight is the place where the enemy loves you to set up camp because darkness makes deception easier. And he thrives in convincing you that what you’re going through right now is the final chapter.

But if you’re listening, midnight is also the time, like I said, where your faith starts whispering. God is still working. God is still moving. God is still faithful. And here’s the thing about midnight. It’s not the end. It’s the turning point. Bible says about midnight. Midnight is the exact moment when one day ends and another begins. Which means you may not see the sunrise yet, but the calendar has already shifted. The favor has already been sent. A new day has already begun. You just can’t see it yet because it’s dark.

But God does some of His best work in what feels like your darkest hours, baby. So your midnight, it may be depression, anxiety, financial struggles, heartbreak, but midnight is proof, as we see in this text, that God is not finished yet. Romans 8 tells us that He works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. So you can take this promise to the bank. If it’s not good yet, God’s not done yet. You might not feel it yet, but something is shifting.

Some of you, you’re hearing this word and you can sense it by the Spirit of God in you. Because the key to this whole setup is right in the phrase itself: about midnight. Not at the end, not at the finish line, not when all hope is lost. Just the middle. It’s just the middle. Man, I know some of you, if you’re young, it’s hard to see that it will ever be different. But I promise you, midnight is just the middle of the night. And weeping may last the night, but joy comes in the morning. It’s just the middle, man.

And the enemy will try to make the middle feel like the end. He’s a master manipulator. And he whispers to you that sound of midnight that it’s never going to change. If you’re in pain, you’re always going to be in pain. If you’re broken, you’ll always be broken. If you’re stuck, you’re never going to get out. If there’s lack, you’re never going to have enough. Never, never, never, always, always, always. But midnight is just a transition point.

Grab a hold of this by faith. It’s not the end of the story. It’s the turning point. It’s literally the second on the clock where one day shifts into another. Doesn’t look like winning, but the calendar already changed. And that means your breakthrough could already be in motion and you just haven’t seen the light yet.

So what do you do in the middle of midnight? You pray. You praise. You sing hymns. You lift your voice. Acts 16:25 says, “About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” See, midnight is a testing ground. The enemy loves it, but it’s also the place where your faith is proven.

And then, watch this: “Suddenly, there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.” Boom. Just like that. Your midnight is the launching pad for your freedom. You may not see it coming, but when your faith perseveres in the dark, God shifts the atmosphere.

Do you see the pattern? Paul and Silas were in the middle of hardship. They were unjustly imprisoned. Their backs were raw from the beating. They were bleeding. They were exhausted. And yet, they chose praise over panic. Worship over worry. Faith over fear. And God moved.

Your midnight may feel like chaos, but it is the very moment God can act with unstoppable power. It’s in that moment where chains are broken, doors are opened, and miracles are released. You just have to stay faithful and trust Him.

And this isn’t just about prison or hardship. Midnight shows up in finances, in health, in relationships, in unanswered prayers, in grief. But God’s power is not limited by your midnight. He works when you can’t see the end.

So I want you to declare today: “I will worship in the midnight. I will trust in the darkness. My faith is bigger than my fear. My praise is louder than my pain. My God is faithful, and He is moving on my behalf.”

When you lift your voice in the dark, your midnight becomes your miracle. Your test becomes your testimony. Your prison becomes your pulpit. And your chains become your story of freedom.

So I encourage you, don’t camp in midnight. Move forward in faith. Sing, pray, praise, declare God’s goodness. Midnight is temporary, but God’s power is eternal.

Remember, what feels like the darkest moment may be the exact moment God is about to release breakthrough. He is faithful, He is working, and your midnight is not the end. It’s the turning point.

Amen.