Right In The Middle

And in this series, we are looking at the people that surround the Easter story, the story of Christ's resurrection. And last week, we looked at Mary Magdalene, and we saw something about her that we perhaps didn't see before. She was possessed by seven demons, and the number seven is the number for completion. So she was completely given over to herself. She was completely given over to vanity.

She was completely given over to the world. Yet, Christ rescued her, called her out, and He replaced those seven demons with seven attributes. And you can go back and listen to that message. Just amazing woman of God in the Bible. It just really spoke to my heart, and I hope it speaks to your heart.

This week, I want to enter into the next story. As the narrative goes, it flows from her story of seeing the risen Christ to where the disciples were. And if you'll follow with me, in fact, you can go to the Bible app, and the notes are there on the Bible app, Bible.com, and go to the events section. You can find Salt Church and pull that up if you want to go that route, or you can follow the screen.

If you're a paper Bible person, that's fine. I kind of pulled out my old rugged Bible this week. It's very rugged. This thing's been to Africa and all different types of places, and I just love it. It's cheap and worn and all that, but I'm speaking out of the new King James Version today.

Yeah, switching it up a little bit. So follow along with me. It says, Then the same day, at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut, where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood, and underlined this, in the midst, and said to them, Peace. Peace be with you. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands in his side.

Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, Peace to you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you. As the Father has sent me, I also send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

And if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained. Now Thomas, called the twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. Father, we thank you for your word. We ask that it touches our hearts, God.

That we learn something new today. That your presence would be with us. That you would be right in the middle. Right in the middle. In your name.

Amen. The middle. Right in the middle. In the middle is what this message is about. It's interesting how the middle is always a place that nobody really wants to be.

If you're a middle child, you know how that is, right? You get the hand-me-downs of the older child. And the younger child somehow is young enough where it's worn down. The hand-me-downs are worn down enough where they don't get those. So they get the new clothes.

So the older kid and the younger kid gets the new stuff and you get all the stuff in the middle, right? There was a popular TV show called Malcolm in the Middle. And it was all about how hard it is to be in the middle. The middle kid, you know? A narrative about the middle kid.

On planes, I mean, nobody wants to sit in the middle seat. Right? You sit in the middle seat and then you've got to worry about this person on this side and this person on that side. Anytime I walk on a plane, please don't give me the middle seat. Please don't give me the middle seat.

I do not want the middle seat. Because, you know, you get the window seat, then you get the scenery, the view, you know? Maybe you're more of a view person and you like the window seat. You're praying for the window seat so I can get all that and the sun and the mountains and flying over, you know, the land. And then there's those who are aisle seat people.

And those are people like control, you know? They want to be able to have the aisle seat so they can get out quickly. They can get in. They don't have to worry about bumping somebody out of the way. It's just, there's those people.

But then you have the middle and nobody really wants to sit in the middle. And it's interesting even when you sit in the middle, you might have, I remember a friend of mine sharing that he was sitting in the middle seat one time and he could clearly tell that the husband and the wife were sitting on both sides and they were kind of large people. And he said, well, do y'all got, you guys want to sit together? And they're like, no, no, it's okay. So he felt kind of weird about it.

And the wife's over here and the husband's over here and here he is. People rarely want to be in the middle because the middle is that place where things just are a little harder. The middle is a place where things are a little fuzzier. We're not quite sure. I mean, the beginning is exciting.

Whenever you get an idea or a vision for something, the beginning is always a place where you get that energy to start. And then the end is like a celebration of where you've come from. But in the middle, it's a little tougher because you're sitting there and it's the place where you execute. This is the whiteboard, you know, with all the details of what has to be done and all the hard work you have to put into it. The middle is a place where you're just as far from the end result as you are from where you started and you're trying to figure out how long is it going to get me there.

And the middle is where we're most tempted to give up. The middle is where we're most tempted to give in. The middle is where we tend to lose our faith. The middle is where we tend to lose our trust. The middle is where we're believing in the promises, but the promises seem a little far away.

The prayer that we've been praying for a long time in the middle doesn't seem to come to fruition right away, so it's really easy to lose heart in the middle. I'm reminded of Nehemiah in Nehemiah 4.6. It says, So we built the wall and the entire wall was joined together up to half the height. So it was half the height.

For the people had the mind to work. So it got to halfway. And that's where a lot of people find themselves halfway. Wow, we're doing a good job. We're halfway, but we're not getting quite halfway yet.

We're not above halfway. And that's where the temptation comes in. Well, that's one. I don't know. To just quit.

To just give up. To just move on. But on in Nehemiah, this is what it says, then Judah said, the strength of the laborers is failing, and there is so much rubbish that we are not able to build the law. And that's where a lot of people find themselves. They hit the slump in the middle.

It's the cycle. This is a great idea, but it's hard, and then it gets terrible, and then I'm terrible, and then there's no way I'm going to finish this, and then morale levels go down, and then we never, ever complete the destiny that God has given us, the place that God has shown us, the calling that God has moved us to, and fear overtakes us. Fear overtakes us. In fact, I find it interesting in Scripture that the storm in the Sea of Galilee, where the disciples were in the boat, and they were in the middle of the sea. It says, but the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary.

And we find the disciples at the moment of Jesus's resurrection in this same place. They're in the middle. The doors are shut. They're locked away. They're hiding.

They're afraid. In this Scripture, they're afraid. In fact, the Greek is more emphatic. It says, they were shut and barred. They were barred.

They were behind the doors. They were in a place. They were, in fact, one commentator says that they were probably so struck with fear that they were huddled in the corner, just waiting for the moment. Every sound was suspicious. Every sound insinuated fear in their hearts as they were waiting for the SWAT team to come in and bust the door down and take them in to arrest them into their martyrdom.

They were afraid, but something happened. There were 12. Judas, the 11. Thomas obviously wasn't there, so there were 10 of them in the house. So they were following CDC guidelines.

But get this. No, no, there's a connection to this. Don't go only on yet. But when the 11th person came into the room, they caught something. They caught something.

What did they catch? They caught Jesus. They caught the Holy Spirit. They caught God. They caught something.

The spirit of calm was in the room. The spirit of peace was in the room. They caught something. It says John 20, verse 19. In the evening of the first day of the week, the disciples had met together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews.

And Jesus came. And what did he do? And I love how the Phillips translation says this. He stood right in the middle. right in the middle of them and said, peace be with you.

He can be right in the middle of your situation. He can be right in the middle of the thing that you're trying to figure out. He can be right in the middle. His presence, him being right in the middle can change everything. And in the book of Acts, we see that.

These cowarding disciples. And what happened? A boldness, a courage came over them. Why? Because Jesus was there.

Let me give you five things today I'm going to leave you with of how God can calm you. Because God wants to bring peace and calm to your hearts. Number one, we're calmed by his presence. We are calmed by his presence. It said he stood in the midst.

He stood in the middle. Just his presence being with the disciples meant everything. It changed everything. The disciples were tucked away. They were hidden.

They were afraid. And then Jesus shows up and a calm comes over them. And what happens after that? Just a book later in the narrative, the book later, Luke 2, if you want to call it that, in Acts. What do we see?

We see Peter going out boldly preaching the gospel and sharing the good news before all the people. This was the same Peter that denied him. This was the same Peter that was absent at the cross of Jesus Christ, tucked away in a room. But yet Peter and John and the other disciples went out proclaiming the good news. Thousands were saved.

And they were in fact arrested and beaten. But they were rejoicing in the streets because they found it worthy. They were considered it worthy to be persecuted for their Christ, for their Jesus. They felt it worthy. What caused that?

His presence. A calmness in their heart of his presence. What was the difference? His presence. It changed them.

It's not, they weren't the same disciples they were before. They were a different disciples. That was the difference. Why? When they saw Jesus on the cross, they thought that they were saying goodbye to Jesus's presence.

When they saw him die on the cross, they thought that he was gone. They were, that he was left. He left them. But when he rose, he showed them and us the particulars of his presence being with us at all times. That he is with us at all times.

Why were they calm? His presence unlocked peace. His presence brought peace because he is peace. He is the prince of peace. And why were they calm?

Because troubles in the presence of God aren't so much troubles anymore. When we have the calmness of Jesus in our lives, his presence, his spirit in our lives, who is with us, lives in us, and with us all the time, we can be guaranteed a fail-safe of peace. Even when we go through trouble, we can have trouble. I mean, we can have trouble, and we're going to have trouble. Jesus says we're going to have trouble.

But we can have peace in the midst of our trouble. Ephesians 2.14 says, He, for he himself is our peace. He doesn't just give peace. He is peace.

His very person is peace, and he gives us peace. And in these days, there's a lot of trouble. There's a lot of fear. But we can be guaranteed peace by leaning into his presence. Acts speaks of these great heroes, young men, that came out, young men and young women that went out proclaiming the gospel.

Why? Because they rose, and they broke in the world, and they were a generation of people that understood the presence of God. And the calmness of God, and the assurance of God, and they changed the world, and I'm saying today in this generation, and let me just speak to you young people, you are living in a time and a period where we need young people who experience the calm, who doesn't mind being different to step out and go out into the world and share the good news and share the gospel and not be afraid or not be ashamed of what we believe and what we stand for. We can be Peter's and John's in this world. We are a generation, and God changes everything by calming us with his presence.

And the second thing, we're calmed by his words. We're calmed by his words. He said, peace be with you. See, his presence is great. But there's something about the words of the person you're present with that bring something different, right?

A father can be present. A father can provide. A father can do for his children and his family, but there's something about the words of a father. There's something about the encouragement of a father. There's something about the tender love of a father.

The words, the promises, the encouragement that comes from a father that really, really take it to the next level. So his presence, but being calmed by his words. And he said this, I bring you peace. Because what they were facing didn't change the circumstances, guys. In fact, every one of them, except for John, would end up facing the very fears that they had when they were away in that home, hid away from the enemy, from the rulers that were trying to seek them out.

Every one of them would go to a martyr's death. So it doesn't take away the troubles, but we can have that word and that peace in the midst of our troubles. That genuine love and tenderness that God is with us through his words. And that word peace means so much. For us, we don't quite understand that word peace in our context.

When we think of peace, we think of the absence of conflict, right? If we don't have conflict, if things is peaceful. But what they, what came across when they talked about peace was deeply rooted in the mid-eastern culture and the Jewish faith. And it meant a wholeness of well-being that God will give you every good gift and at every level from the outside to the inside that, that God would absolutely bless you in every way possible. When he says, I give you peace, it meant more than just, you're not going to have conflict.

It means that at every level of your life, body, spirit, soul, you have this wellness of being. Shalom. Shalom. It shows that he is for us. And if he hasn't, and that he hasn't given up on us, and that means that we don't need, if he doesn't answer our prayers, and let me just speak to this about prayers, we tend to be in a culture that perceives that if we get from A to B as quick as possible, then there must be some kind of success, or we must be doing something right.

You can look at a business, and if it gets there really quickly, we're, wow, they must be doing something right. That's success, right? If they get there, a church grows to a thousand people in a year. Wow, they must be doing something right. That must be successful.

And we take that into our prayer, our prayer life. And instead of seeing that God is for us, we see that because he hasn't answered our prayers in the way we think he should have answered our prayers, or he just hasn't answered those prayers yet, then perhaps there's something wrong. God isn't listening to me. God isn't answering my prayers. But I'd rather us be spiritual adopters of what God is going to do rather than sit and wait.

In fact, think about the pandemic and everything that's going on. We're like, wow, when we get out of this pandemic, we're going to celebrate, right? We're going to get, we just have a party, we're going to enjoy. But I ask you to be early spiritual adopters and praise God because of what he's already doing and what he's going to do. But right now, we can live in that celebration, in that moment, knowing that our God's words, peace is with us.

He is with us. And we take him at his word. We take God at his word. Hebrews says it like this, this hope we have as an anchor for our soul, both sure and steadfast. We have his word to hold us together, an anchor for our soul.

We're also calmed by his wounds. We're also calmed by his wounds. The third point, if you're taking notes. Verse 20 says, they saw his wounds. Then the disciples were glad.

It didn't say, oh, what? Jesus is in the room. We're glad. Hallelujah. And then he showed them his wounds.

He showed them his wounds first. And then they were glad. In fact, the Amplified version, they were filled with exultant joy when they saw his wounds. They were filled with this overwhelming joy in their hearts and in their lives. Luke 24 says, he even goes into detail.

He says, look at my hands and feet. It is I myself, touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. Now, why would this give them peace? Why would this give them confidence?

Or why does this work when we look at his wounds? First of all, it gave them confidence. It really was him. He was actually the risen Christ. And it gave them hope for resurrection.

Because without resurrection, without hope for resurrection, what are we even doing what we're doing? Right? Amen. The hope for resurrection, he gave them a piece of what eternity looks like at that moment. He gave them hope.

And in scripture, and I've done series on heaven and what heaven's like and some theology behind heaven and scopes of heaven. But Paul talks about a rendering, a disconnecting of our body and spirit at death. And that our spirit goes, we're absent from the body and present with the Lord. So immediately we're with the Lord when we pass from this life. And I can't tell you what it's like to be a spirit with God, but I can tell you it's amazing in the very presence of God, that you're in the very presence of God.

But our bodies are left here. But he also talks about when the trump will sound, the dead in Christ will rise first. Meaning that those bodies that are left here On this earth, no matter if they're cremated, some people have the cremation questions or the burial questions and all that, it doesn't matter because God's beyond all of that, right? God's beyond materialism. And he says the dead and Christ will rise first and meet him in the air and then those who are alive with him will go to be with him in the end.

So these bodies, they will be with God. They will be renewed bodies. They will be the perfected optimal bodies that God made for you in the Garden of Eden. You will have those once again. And Jesus was an example of that and we cannot have even an inkling of a view of what that might be without Jesus here.

It gave them confidence that they saw him, the hope for resurrection. As Paul says, if there is no resurrection, then we eat, drink, be merry, for tomorrow we die. But we live. We live. Forever.

Forever. We sing in this song forever. Everything and nothing less. But not just today, but forever. We will give him everything and nothing less.

We see that in Jesus Christ. We see that in Jesus Christ as he showed him his wounds. Look at my side. Look at the pierced hands. Look at my feet.

You see and you know. And you believe. And another thought is the last time they saw him, it was the worst thing that ever happened to them. I can't even begin to explain to you what this really meant to the disciples when they saw him die on the cross. Because their hope wasn't only a spiritual Messiah, but it was a political Messiah.

Then they would be on his cabinet. And they would be ruling the world and he would set peace on earth for everything and everyone and everywhere for eternity. That was their expectation of this Jesus Christ. And then there he was. When they saw him on the cross, when they heard that he had passed, all their hopes and dreams were dashed.

So he had to show them his wounds. In essence, he's saying, you thought these wounds were something else. But God has a plan with these wounds that you didn't even think about. That God had a plan for these wounds to redeem all things to himself. He is in the redeeming business.

He's bringing redemption back. And he's redeemed. That's his whole purpose. The earth and everything thereof will be restored. And through his wounds, we can see that.

And not only do we have hope for redemption of all things, we have hope that he will fulfill all those God-given dreams we have now. Even if they're not fulfilled in this lifetime, guys. I think about maybe this is just an assumption. I wouldn't say it's theologically perfect or theologically accurate, but just some thoughts about it. That as Moses led the Israelites to the promised land, he didn't quite make it there, did he?

He was taken from this world before he ever made it there. So the promise that God had given him, the thing that God had told him to do, the dream that he had for his people to deliver him from Egypt into the promised land, was not fulfilled. But he saw it because heaven works backwards. In fact, that moment in the transfiguration, I can just imagine when Moses came down and was with Jesus, having a conversation with Jesus, he was probably looking around at the promised land at that moment. And I'm sure tears came to his eyes as he saw for himself with his feet on the ground there, looking out and about at that very place that his people were given, that hope that God had given Moses, the promised land.

And the last thing I want to say about that point is Jesus is always showing us what he has done for us and not what he can do and what we can do for him. He's always showing us what he has done for us and not what you can do for him. I got to be good for Jesus. I got to do this right. I got the conversations as a pastor I have.

It's amazing how we as human beings are so trying to earn the favor of God. Religion. But God, Jesus himself is a friend. And he gave his life and he said, hey, look, here's what I've done for you. Here's what I've done for you on the cross.

He's also, he also calms us by his, his mission. It says, as the father sent me, I also send you. As the father sent me also, I send you. And this isn't just a sending. This is a diplomatic statement that God, Jesus himself says, I'm charging you.

I'm giving you the authority to go out and to, to demonstrate my kingdom and to go out and make decisions. Disciples and to make churches and to plant churches and to plant churches like Salt Church and communities that need the gospel and need to hear the gospel and need to connect people to Jesus Christ. He was given a diplomatic mission. And we can talk about the gathering. Gathering is a wonderful place where we can experience the presence of God.

We can experience the calmness of God. We can experience the peace of God in the gathering. Right now, a lot of people aren't gathering. A lot of people, some of you are watching online. Maybe you're, you're still concerned about getting out in the public.

And, and we can't wait for the day that we're all able to gather without any CDC requirements and without anything. And there's something special about those moments. You bring friends in, you hear the word, you do prayer requests, you put in prayer requests together. Now there, there's a sense of peace in the gathering. And he said this, but he said this, again, peace be with you.

He said that, he said, peace be with you. And then he comes back and he repeats it. But again, peace be with you because there's not only peace in the gathering, there's peace in the scattering. He, he, he, he not only brings peace in this place as we're here in a safe place, receiving from Christ and being equipped by Christ and being nourished by Christ through his body. But in the scattering, you can have and walk in peace in his presence.

And he calms us in his mission. John 20, 21 says it. And so Jesus said to them again, peace to you as the father has sent me, I also send you. And then in verse 23, he says, if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sin.

As of any, they are retained. What does he mean by that? He means simply this, how can they know unless we go? How can they know unless we go? Which brings us back to Romans 10, 14.

It connects us there. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? How can they hear without somebody telling them?

What does he mean? Preacher? You're a preacher, pastor. No, you're a preacher. You're a pastor.

You're a gospel people. You're a gospel. Take that gospel out and share it. He's talking about everyone under the name of his name. There's not only peace in the gathering, there's peace in the scattering.

And as we are sent, there is a peace as you see your mission unfold. That you are on mission. And then lastly, lastly, they were calmed by his spirit. They were calmed by his spirit. He breathed on them and said, receive the spirit.

Receive power. I find it interesting that when you read the the Septuagint, which is the Greek Old Testament, we get the same word breathed in Genesis as we do breathed in the New Testament scripture where Jesus breathed on the disciples. And it says this, and the Lord God formed a man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living being. But what we learned about the first Adam is that it wasn't good enough.

What we learned about the first Adam, he failed. Though it was breathed in him, the very breath of life, he wasn't successful. But God brought the second Adam into place. God brought Jesus Christ into place. He was the one, though God breathed the very breath of life into man, Jesus breathed the very breath of life back into man through the second Adam.

So what? Where Adam failed, Jesus picked up, and Jesus brought into place. And the second Adam, or the first Adam rather, ate from the tree. But the second Adam conquered sin on the tree. The first Adam failed, but the second Adam had success.

John 19, 18. There they crucified him on the tree, right? And with him two others. Look at this. One on each side.

And Jesus, where? In the middle. He hung in the middle. Right in the middle. Right in the middle of your life.

Right in the middle of your frustration. Right in the middle of your darkness. Right in the middle of whatever you're going through. We could have the musicians come up. We're going to come into this next part of the service.

And I'm going to ask you, there's a lot of questions that are presented here. Are you in the middle? Do you feel like you're in the middle of something that seems impossible to get out of? Do you feel like there's a place of darkness in your life that you, that's just nowhere, no escape? Do you feel bound in a room full of fear?

Heartstruck with paralyzing uncertainty in your life. Maybe you're just in the middle of a business venture. Maybe you're in the middle of just trying to process the things that you always expected your life to be or where you thought you would be at by now. Because point A to point B is supposed to happen really fast, right? For it to be successful and be of God.

But you might have to change your viewpoints as we look to a Christ who, who says, you know, nothing is done on a human timetable. That in that moment of time, in fact, scripture tells us that when the time was, was right, when all the periods of history were connected together at just the right moment. For thousands of years, people believed that there would be a Messiah to come. And they had hoped and they had prayed. And they had gone through things and they left God and they came back to God and they left God and they came back to God.

But, but, but, but God was waiting because it had to be at that right moment in that period of time when Jesus would come. And this is the beauty of Easter. Because at no other moment in history, God could have chose any moment in history to, to, to send his son into the world to save the world. But he chose that moment and all of its particulars to show us how big our God is. Because all the pieces, all the dots came together with the Roman empire and, and, and all the connections in the world that was able to be evangelized at the time, that the church was able to flourish even in the midst of persecution, even in the midst of uncertainty, even of a new movement.

And that thousands of years later, we are still here today is because God decided that at the right moment in time, right in the middle of his perfect plan and his perfect purpose, that they would wait for years and years and years to come and that they would be fulfilled. And we were on the other side, celebrating the goodness, the things that we see and the things that we know and the things that we can place with like physical things that we can put our hope in and not just believing, but it has substance. As Hebrews says, we have, it's the substance of things hoped for. We have that substance yet now because God chose. It was in the right moment of time so that all the world could know who he was, that he entered into darkness, and the darkness could not overcome him.

It seems impossible. The darkness is so heavy. The darkness is so big. Why, God? And we forget that the darkness was here.

The first Adam brought the darkness. He chose the darkness, a holy heavenly place, and yet man still failed to meet all the expectations of all that. But he came into the darkness. He did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might live. And he stepped right in the middle of our sin.

He stepped right in the middle of our darkness. And his presence, his word, his life, his wounds, and just everything changed at that moment. So with our heads bowed and our eyes closed, I want you to pray. I just want you to lift God up. And this altar is always open.

We want to create a culture of where this altar is open. As music's going, if you feel like you need to come down here and you need prayer, we have prayer people that will come up. Come up here and pray for you. Never feel like it's not a place where you can come and kneel before God. But you can come to the altar.

But right where you're at, just begin to call out on him. Lord, if you're dealing with an issue, if you're dealing with a place that just seems to be no end in sight, and you can't even see the beginning anymore, just call out to him. He'll hear your prayers. He'll hear your needs. He wants to heal you.

God, I pray for the people today that are going through hard times, who are going through circumstances, who are going through depression, who are going through struggles in their life. They're going through relationship issues, God. They're going through family matters, Lord Jesus. They're going through job issues, Lord. They're going through financial issues, Lord.

And there seems to be no, no, no end in sight. But they hear your voice and they know that you have something for them. Assure them through your very voice, Lord. Touch their hearts. Touch their lives.

Use your tender words, God. God, we're calling out to our shepherd. We're calling out to our shepherd now. In that same spirit, there are those of you who heard for the first time today from your shepherd to come home. That you've never made a decision for Jesus.

You've never made a decision for Christ. He's ready to receive you. He's there with open arms. Scripture says, He who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. If you confess with your mouth and believe with your heart, you will be saved.

Nothing magical in the prayer is just a confession of your heart. Saying it with your mouth. And just receiving him and surrendering him. And you'll be able to sing this song as well. I surrender all.

I'll surrender all. Just pray this with me. Father, I believe that you are the Son of God. You died on the cross for our sin. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for the cross.

And we receive the blood. I receive the blood today over my life. Transform me. Clean me white as snow, as you say. Come into my heart.

Come into my life. Make me yours. Amen. Amen. Can y'all just celebrate Jesus Christ?

Amen.