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Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

Work For The Night Is Coming

Maybe that doesn't have quite the same significance to us in 2020.

Maybe it has more, but I'm thinking back to the age of farming, back to the age of candles, of lanterns.

It wasn't that long ago that I was working on a project with Elizabeth's dad and Elizabeth ended up out there.

We were trying to screen in the back porch and there was these high panels and so I was way up on a ladder and trying to push this thing into the track without, you know, mashing it through the screen.

And I was ready to be, I think it was about 9.30 at night and we started at 6 that morning.

That wasn't really an option going back not too many years, because there was no lights to just flip on, there was no headlamps and those types of things.

If you wanted to get the work done, you started at sunup, and by sunset, you're done.

Well, you just, you can't, you can't see.

And when, depending on the job and the work that you're doing, if you can't see, How good can you do the job you're trying to accomplish?

And so we have this charge, work for the night is coming.

In addition to Billy Graham, Jim Elliott was a well-known missionary to Ecuador who was also a student at Wheaton College, the same school Billy Graham went to.

And in his student days he developed a passion for overseas mission.

Anybody here have a passion for overseas mission, love to travel?

Yeah, you're kind of stuck at home right now, aren't you?

Maybe you haven't found that Roku station of, what's the 1, the Maranatha station.

We love watching Maranatha, we just want to go on another trip.

Well, he had a real passion for overseas mission and particularly for reaching the unreached people groups on the planet.

Elizabeth Howard happened to go to Ecuador as well to minister to the Quechua Indians.

The 2 were married in 1953 in Quito, Ecuador.

But it was on January 8, 1956 that 5 missionaries to the Aqua Indians in Ecuador were speared to death.

While attempting to contact the Harare tribe, Jim Elliot was only 28 years old at the time.

Their only daughter, Valerie, was just 10 months old.

And that tragedy became a defining moment in the history of evangelical missions.

Hundreds of young people were inspired to take up missionary work.

Thousands were moved to deeper commitment to Christ and millions of dollars in resources were mobilized.

And you can see here, scribbled, maybe you can see, maybe you can't read it, but this is his own handwriting and there in red, underlined in red, in case you can't read it, He wrote here, this is Jim Elliot, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." What does that mean for us this morning?

Living on the knife edge of eternity, in the middle of a pandemic, what does that mean for you and for me?

Are you giving what you cannot keep to gain what you cannot lose?

As most of you know, amazingly, Elizabeth continued her work with the Quechua people and 2 and a half years after the accident that took her husband's life, she went out to the jungles of Ecuador, now with her three-year-old daughter, to live among the Hironi tribe, the same tribe that killed her husband.

And she stayed in Exploror for the next 5 years.

Or did she perhaps subscribe to the same idea?

Jim actually wrote that down when he was 21 years old.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

And I can't help but think that that journal entry that Jim penned so many years ago maybe had some kind of a root in this idea, work for the night is coming.

When Jesus comes in the clouds of glory so much of what we work for is going to be absolutely meaningless on that day.

However other things that we invest in regardless of how crazy things get they can't be taken.

If you brought your Bibles I hope you did we're going to be looking at these first 4 verses of the book of John.

In my Bible it's entitled, A Man Born Blind Receives Sight.

And We're just going to read the first 4 verses.

If you want to know that the man does or is healed, just keep reading.

But beginning there, John chapter 9 verse 1, now as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from birth.

And then verse 2, and his disciples asked him, Jesus saying, Rabbi, Who sinned?

You see the Jews tended to believe that sickness was a scourge of God.

It was a way of punishing those that didn't follow exactly as they should.

And so these disciples are scratching their heads, they're trying to make sense of this, trying to figure it out, and so they ask a simple question that might seem silly to us, but it wasn't silly to them.

You know, sometimes we think it's silly when you read this story but how often do we apply in our own lives the same way of thinking?

You get the report back from the doctor and you say, what did I ever do to you, God?

Does he bring pain and heartache in our life?

In verse 3, Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him." So it's nice that we sell this idea that it's not because of the man's sin, It's not because of his parents sin.

It's neither 1 of those But now it seems like we have a new dilemma now It sounds like God says I'm gonna cause this young child to be born blind So that all these years I think it's some 38 years later, I'm going to come and heal him and it will be to my glory.

That sounds a little disturbing too, doesn't it?

Well if we break down the verbiage a little bit, it says, neither this man nor his parents sinned but that.

The word there in Greek for that, if you will, is a clause of result, And it's frequently used in translation to bring about, because of this, then that.

And so we could read it this way, but as a result of his suffering, the works of God will be revealed.

And then verse 4, Jesus says this, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

When duty arose with Him, there was never a question.

And so we have what we could call the divine obligation.

I must do the works of Him who sent me while it is day.

In fact we see this same divine obligation, if you will, in other parts, in other Gospels.

Here's 1 in Luke chapter 2 verse 49, I must be about my father's business.

Luke chapter 4 verse 43, I must proclaim the good news, again his divine obligation.

Jesus' life was not about being comfortable, doing what he wanted to do.

He did not live for himself, nor was he trying to win a popularity contest.

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Work For The Night Is Coming

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