The Night Shift

Below is an excerpt from the sermon...

We are going to be continuing the series on Psalms that Pastor is in. I’m excited about tonight and looking at this psalm—Psalm 134. This is the second shortest psalm in the entire Bible. Does anyone know the shortest one? You can shout it out. 117, there you go. Okay, so this one is only three verses long, but it is a very powerful chapter and I’m excited to dive in here with you.

If you would, if you’re able, let’s all stand together and we’ll read this short psalm and we’re going to read it together out loud in unison. Psalms 134:1. Let’s begin: Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, Which by night stand in the house of the Lord. [2] Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, And bless the Lord. [3] The Lord that made heaven and earth Bless thee out of Zion.

So, it’s very easy to miss what’s going on here because it’s not talked about a whole lot in the Bible. So, 1 Chronicles 9:33 mentions this. It talks about certain Levite priests who remained in the temple and were employed there night and day. Okay. You read all of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy—all the places that mentioned the Law and the regulations of the Levites and everything they did. Absolutely all of it talked about what they did in the daytime. There’s not a single verse you’ll find that really that talks about what they did on the night shift. This psalm is addressed to the night shift workers in the temple.

Okay, so what’s this thing about the night shift? We’re going to talk about it in just a second. I’ll pray and let you be seated. If they’re not offering sacrifices and they’re not ministering to people during the night, then what in the world are they doing? And why is it not highlighted more in Scripture? Why don’t we know more about this? And what does the night shift mean for us today? Once we understand what this is, it will become clear why the night shift in our life is vital. The night shift is your service to God that no one ever sees. And there’s some lessons for us to learn here tonight.

Let’s pray and dedicate this to the Lord. Father, I pray that you would take this sermon, Lord, as an offering to You. help me to do my best, Lord. To offer it as to the Lord. I pray that You would speak to us through this wonderful chapter here, and let us see through the lens of a New Testament priest. Help us to understand what it means for us, Lord, and help us to walk out different. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen. Thank you for standing. You may be seated.

So, the term “night shift” or “graveyard shift,”—when I mentioned that, it’s almost like a trigger word if you’ve ever worked the night shift. It brings up some bad memories. Okay? Starting work from say 10 o’clock or midnight and then ending at 6:00 in the morning or 8:00 a.m. So, by the show of hands, has anyone worked the night shift before? You’ve worked the graveyard shift? Okay. You’ve, you’ve survived. And let me ask this: given the choice and assuming that the pay is the same, would anyone actually prefer the night shift to the day shift? There’s always one. Allen ,one in the back. Oh, no. Okay. So, I guess I can’t say what is in my notes. It says, “No sane person likes the night shift.” Okay. Sorry. You know, I have to stick to the script here.

So, many companies even give what’s called a shift differential to night shift workers because it’s less desirable than the day shift. Bosses have to bribe their employees to sign up for the night shift. Okay, with me? All right.

What did the night shift workers, the temple priests do? We have a couple ideas from Scripture and then some we just know from tradition, but some of them that we know for sure They had to keep the lampstand lit. That’s 1 Samuel 3:3 and other places. They had to keep the sacrifices burning. There was a certain sacrifice that they had to keep burning continually. They had to guard the gates. Right? I mean, there was a lot of gold in the temple. If you if you read through Exodus and Solomon’s plans. They didn’t want people looting the temple at night, They didn’t have Bay Alarm set up. And so, they had to have human beings stationed at the entrance. They had to sing praises to God. They meditated on God’s Word. David talks about looking forward to the night watch is so he could meditate on God’s Word. He says, I believe it’s is in Psalm 64. He says, my soul thirstiest for thee and I’m so looking forward to the night watch so that I can meditate on God’s Word. And then, according to some Jewish tradition, the priests also bathed and washed their garments for the next day. So, it was prep time for the next day.

Okay. Notice that none of these duties that I that I just mentioned are performed in front of people. It is not a public ministry, but the night shift covered a third of the day. And this is the part in the priest’s life and ministry where it wasn’t between them and people taking the sacrifices and doing the rituals and everything. It was between them and God. Only God saw what was done on the night shift.

Okay, I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but for me if I had to get, say, baby Tylenol at 2:00 o’clock in the morning, there’s only a couple little grocery stores that are open. And if you’ve gone to a grocery store at the wee hours of the morning, it looks a lot different than the daytime. What you will find: there’s boxes everywhere, the people that are on the night shift are not concerned about the customers at all. All the lanes are closed, and there’s one lane that’s kind of blinking and you have to stand there for 15 or 20 minutes to get someone’s attention. What are they doing? A lot of it is they’re restocking the shelves and doing inventory, taking stock of what they have to get ready for the next day. Imagine if they shut down the night shift for a day, maybe you wouldn’t notice too much. But you shut it down for a week and no one has stocked the shelves for an entire week, you’re going to notice. And more and more, I mean, until the shelves are absolutely empty. You’re going to figure out eventually that the night shift is very important. But they are the people that you don’t see, right? And usually, they don’t get the credit. They’re not the ones that the bosses are giving promotions to because they’re not seeing them. Okay? The night shift is less desirable. Not often seen but essential. It is that the night shift. The duty done on the night shift is essential for the day shift to work.