It's In The Middle

Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.

I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message. We're focused this week on the word of salvation. You know, when Jesus was dying on the cross, he said to a thief that was crucified with him. You, of course would know that the crucifixion was not an anomaly in Jesus' time. It was a common form of

One of them mocked him.

Said, if you were really who you say you are, you would get down off that cross, and you would get us down to save us. And while one mocked him, the other one, who was on his right side, recognized the distinction of his divinity, or at least his innocence, and said, we deserve this and you don't. And sir, I'm not quite sure who you are, but when you come into your kingdom, remember me. And Jesus said today

She might change her mind, so we got to get this done.

It's my little brother, but he's a lot taller than me and he serves in the United States Air Force.

And they honored me. Yeah, praise the Lord.

Yeah, he's cool.

He could beat me up but I got mind game on him, so he doesn't He doesn't know that. But he asked me to do his wedding and his fiance brook and they asked me to come, and I was. I was privileged to do it. Holly said I did a good job. In fact, she said exactly this. She said, you did so good officiating that wedding. She said, I kind of wish I could marry somebody else so you could.

Do the wedding.

Wasn't sure how to receive that compliment. I rebuked her a twisted compliment. But anyway, I only bring it up because truth be told. Although I really love the opportunity to do the wedding, I kind of have a problem not with weddings. I'm not anti marriage. Do not send me emails. Send them all to Jonathan Joseph' your Valentine campus pastor. It's not that I'm against love. I'm nothing against it. It's just that can we all agree, especially those of us who have.

Been married for more than ten years.

That marriage has very little to do with the flower arrangement that you choose, or how many layers of cake.

That you can roll.

Out that you're not going to eat anyway, because only the top one is real and all the other stuff.

Is just decoration.

Come on, it doesn't matter how many shades of magenta your bridesmaids are standing there dressed it. What happens in marriage happens in the middle. Somebody shout us in the middle. That's my sermon today. I want to say, it's in the middle that a marriage is made. It's in the middle that a Christian grows. It's in the middle that you find out what you're made of. This sermon is like a TUTSI rull pop.

What you bought it for is in the middle.

And I admire the thief, and I'm thankful that he was saved on the cross. But most of us don't get to be in paradise the day we get saved. The fact of the matter is we don't get raptured up to Heaven the moment we make Jesus Christ the Lord.

Of our lives. We are left here on.

This or so that we can bring Heaven into our situation.

It's in the middle.

And the way that we typically focus.

On the moment.

You know, I believe that God can save you in a moment. I really do. If you're here today, and you're thinking that you have to you have to memorize some Bible verses, or there's some certain habit that you have to correct in your life, or y'll tired of hearing me preach.

I've been preaching to.

Y'all for eleven years now, and for eleven years I've been saying this same message. God can save you in a moment. If you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and confess with your mouth Jesus.

Is Lord, you shall be saved.

I know it because that thief did not have to enroll in a theological school, he didn't have to go through a Catechism class, he didn't have to prove the legitimacy of his faith by giving up certain things. Come as you are, don't expect to stay that way. And Jesus said today you will be with me in paradise. Part of me thinks that would be kind of nice if I could just be married and stay married without

Don't get me wrong.

He can move in a moment, something can happen in your soul. When the word of God goes forth, that is so strong that the chains are broken and you are never the same.

Why not today?

The apostle Paul said that today is the day of salvation. He said that to the Corinthian Church Backxlett, and he said, now is the time of God's favor.

Somebody shout now, not when you get your.

Act together, not when people approve of you.

Now, now is the hour.

Today is today.

And the privilege of my life is seeing someone in a moment make a decision to follow Christ in a moment, for the weight to be lifted, for the change to be broken in a moment. Yet, what about the middle Because I know that He can save me in a moment, and I know that when I die in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, to be absent from the body, he has to be present with the Lord I'm going to have when I die.

And I'm glad about it.

And I don't have to fry and burn, and I know all that, and I'm real glad about it. But one thing the thief and I did not have in common, because we both deserved the cross that Jesus died on. But I didn't get to go to Paradise the moment that I trusted Christ with my life. So this message is not about paradise. This message is about process. This message is not about flower girls. This message is about

Maybe you don't, but I still look.

Look real good at the person next to you, and see if they look.

Like they still need saving.

See if they look like there are still some times in their lives. Come on Blakeney that they still need saving. It's a seven mile journey, and the miracle.

Is in the middle.

Did you notice that's not from this Amayas road where Jesus just shows up beside these two disciples held you don't put too much of this on Instagram stories because I don't want them to see it. I want them to have to watch it online later. Those of them are sitting home in the snow. Don't be putting it online right now. I want them to catch it later. And Jesus just shows up right in the middle of their conversation.

It's a man named Cleopus, and some scholars.

Suggests perhaps his wife, his companion, and he were not expecting the presence of Christ to show up. But he showed up in the middle of their disappointment. He showed up in the middle of their disillusionment. He showed up in the middle of there, we thought, so he showed up in the middle of the what now he showed up in the middle. God will meet you in the middle. It's in the middle. And they walked. They they walked,

Like he's a man on a mission.

He's got people to see and things to do, and only thirty nine and a half days before he has ascended to the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quicken the dead. And so he acts as if show him again, as if he were going further. And sometimes it feels as.

If God is leaving you.

I would suggest that some of the moments when it feels as if he's walking away from you, he is creating a desire within you so that if you draw near to him, he will draw near to you. God is trying to set your faith free from the need to feel.

It, to have it.

As if somebody say, as if the next time the devil tries to tell you God has left you, that God has abandoned you, look him right in the eye and say, with your hand on your hip, in your best white girl teenager voice, say as if, as if he would leave me, he said he would never leave me, never forsake me, never abandon me. He will stop what he's started high his and he is mine. And he's with me in the middle as if he were going further.

And they asked him to come in and stay with them.

Now, professional pointer, be careful when you ask Jesus to come in, because if he comes in, he's going to take over. So God is not going to settle for a shout out. He's not going to make himself a cot in the foyer of your heart.

He's coming in the kitchen. He's coming in the kitchen.

I feel God on that, and I don't know why I touch somebody say he's coming.

In your kitchen. He's coming in your kitchen.

He wants to get into the ingredients. Watch what Jesus does. He walks in this is verse thirty. He sits down at the table, takes their bread. Remember it's Cleo's house. But Jesus reaches right across the table, takes Cleo's bread, and he just starts doing stuff.

See.

I need you to know that God is.

Not going to come into your life and stay on standby so that when you kind of sort of need him and maybe can fit him into your schedule. Maybe I can get a little Jesus juice when my boyfriend isn't calling me back maybe I'll see Jesus when he comes into your life. I feel the spirit of God. It's all up in me right now.

I feel it.

God said, I'm taking over. Today is the.

Day of salvation. I'm taking over your thoughts. I'm taking over your magna. Said, I'm taken over your desires. Salvation is total surrender. This is how I used to preach when I was twenty three man.

This is how I.

Used to preach to people who thought that God could be.

A part of their life.

If God gets in your life, he's gonna get all up in the middle of it. God is gonna change who you have listed in the contacts of your iPhone.

God, don't hear me.

God is gonna change who you friend on Facebook.

God is gonna.

Change what you're doing eleven thirty on Friday night. God isn't just gonna wait for you to get to church on Sunday morning and bless you with a goosebump. God wants I know where to preach. I know where the love is.

It's in the middle.

Somebody shout us in the middle, anyway, Is it okay?

Jesus doesn't ask any permission. He sits down at Cleo's kitchen table, takes Cleo's bread, blesses CLO's bread, breaks the bread, and gives the bread. And when he gives the bread that he broke, which is also the bread that he blessed, which is also the bread that he took. When he takes over your life, he blesses your life. But the same hands that bless your life are the.

Same hands that must be trusted when your life is broken.

I mean, when your heart is in a million pieces. See. I need to preach this because sometimes we think when we get saved that everything is gonna be sanitized and everything is gonna be safe. And we think that when we get safe. See, this is the kind of preaching that will help you when life is doing its best to tear you apart. You can know, beyond the shadow of a town, somebody shut up, still saved.

I'm saved when i'm happy. I'm saved when i'm sad. I'm saved when they're with me. I'm saved when they walk away. I'm saved when i'm up. I'm saved when i'm down. I'm saved when i'm blessed. I'm saved when i'm broken. I'm saved in the palace, I'm saved in the pit.

God is with me.

In the middle. Three things I don't want to give you. Three things I want to give you about the middle. I was saved, it happened, I will be saved. I'm going to be with him forever. But I need him to be with me in the middle. This is not a moment to moment contractual arrangement with God, because we kind of think like his grace will save you, and his grace will get you to Heaven. You're on your own in between. I want to declare that the same grace that will get you there wherever you're there is

And the gift is in the middle.

Today, you will be with me in Paradise. What an awesome promise to that thief but I got a better one for you, because that's pretty good, right. I mean, come on, you're a dying thief and you're trying to slip in before the door closes. You're trying to get on Noah's ark and it's already halfway out in the water, and with your drowning, dying breath, you half heartedly make a request just in case it works and that guy got in. Okay, today you will be with me in paradise.

Today, help me.

Say God, not today you will be with me in paradise, but today I will be with you in the process. You see, to me, that's even better. That I have not only his statement, but I have his spirit. I am sealed with a guarantee that He is with me, not just when I raised my hand, not just when I went down in the baptismal waters.

That was awesome. Your wedding was beautiful, and.

We all appreciate so much the catering service.

But we're not waiting, please, like God.

Left you on earth to wait to go to heaven.

Have you noticed that so much of what.

We talk about in terms of salvation has to do with us getting out of here, like Christianity is God's.

Cosmic evacuation plan.

But what out.

The middle? See the gift is in the middle. Can I show you something Peter said one time? Peter knew something about the middle because one time he was in the middle of the sea, in the middle of the storm. All of a sudden, in the middle of the sea, in the middle of the storm, here comes somebody walking toward him. And he's not quite sure, but he thinks it might just be Jesus. So he cries out in the middle of the sea, in the middle of the storm, if it's.

You, tell me to come.

And he gets out the boat and he does pretty good, and by the time he gets where he's going, God reaches down and grabs him. That's a picture of the grace to get started and the grace that will be there in the end.

But what about the middle.

He was walking on water above what could have killed him, and all of a sudden in the wind and the waves on the right and the left caused him to lose his focus.

On the man in the middle, and he sinks.

And so Peter says, sometimes you are so focused on what's behind you. I'm preaching to somebody, and you are so focused and concerned and anxious about what's ahead of you, you are missing the presence of God. He is not the great I was, and he is not the great.

I will be. He is the.

Great I am, and his presence is not just what heaven one day. The Kingdom of God is that hand.

He's here.

In the middle.

And a little later in his life, Peter was writing to a persecuted church who was going through a fiery trial, and they were in the middle of it, and he said to them, this is like one Peter one, verse nine. He said, you are receiving I've been studying this all week. I hope you'll like this as much as I did. Sometimes it's tough because I've been thinking about it all week, and you have a real job and real bills, and I'll just get up here trying to tell you this stuff.

And I don't know if.

You see it, But he said, you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

What was he saying?

One day it will be complete and there will be no need. But you don't have to wait until one day when children show us how to do this better than because adults are so goal focused, and we think that things have to be a certain way before we can enjoy God's presence, before we can enjoy what God's given us. So we set certain destinations in our mind. When it gets like that, then I'll be complete.

But God wants to teach you how to.

Get it in the middle. I believe this is life changing. I believe this is life changing. I was riding my bike. We don't do this much, just on vacation. I'm scared to ride my bike on the road the way some of y'all drive with elevation church stickers on your car. Scare me to death. But we were riding through.

We were riding. We were riding.

We were on family vacation and we had rented bicycles, and we were riding to a restaurant and it started raining outside, and I started going through all this negative cycle of emotions about the rain, and I knew it was going to rain, and I told Holly was going to rain, and she.

Said it wasn't going to rain.

And I was raining, and we're too far to turn around and go back home.

And so now we got to ride in the rain.

All of a sudden, I see Elijah.

He pulls around me, and he shouts at the top of his lungs, epic because he saw a mud puddle. And for him, the mud puddle looked like the perfect thing to aim at riding in the rain. Now to me it was annoying. To him, it was epic. I was already steering to go around it, and he was going right. When I thought about that picture, I thought about some of you going to work this week, and I saw you not aiming around the thing that you see.

Tea and the southphires.

No, it's here, and now it's in the Monday and the mundane. It's in the mud, It's in the dirtiest in the See. God is a gardener. He likes to get down in the mud, down in the dirt, down in the disappointment. God is in the middle. The gift is in the middle.

I see you riding your bike. I see you puddling through the puddle this week.

I'm not going around it, Grace, look at me, Thirling.

It's in the middle.

Shout somebody.

Colors so sleepy. All right, let me illustrate this. Come here, Jonathan, and I'm coming coming, Come and come and come and come here, Jonathan, Come here. Do you remember write this down? This is point number two. I'm closing real quick because I know y'all got to go and I don't want to stop. But if this is number two in my message, So if you need to leave, if you've got something to do, leave right now, because I'm in the middle, and when I get to the end, it's gonna be

Was preaching on confidence, and I talked about how far I feel like.

I have to go, and then I exactly sit down, sit down, he says, sit out, He's got me.

Come here, come here, he's got me.

You got somebody else still in this road that can help to okay, okay, come on, come on, because he said he said, he said my point before I could say it, So I figured he should help me.

With this illustration.

And this guy, this is perfect.

You know how perfect this is because not only is the gift in the middle, but watch my second point. You won't believe this. The goal is in the middle. And see, man, God knew you needed to help me with this. Com So come come, come here, come all the way, stay right there, stay right there, stay right there. So we were talking about in that sermon illustration about how sometimes you have to look back and see how far God has already brought you. So salvation means I am not what.

I once was.

How many can say that I am not what I once was. But the same time you raise your right hand, how many of you could lift your left hand and say, but I'm not what I want to be.

That's you.

That's you.

You are what I want to be.

Okay, And I chose you because you're much better looking than him, to.

Be what I want to be. And so we talked about living in the.

Gap and so what I expect when I hear about saltha, you know, like in a wedding ceremony, they say, and the two will be calm, one flesh. Notice they will become. They will become. But it's not going to happen there at the ceremony. It's going to happen in the kitchen when we're trying to decide who does the dishes.

They won't help me preach.

They just want to go to.

Heaven when we all get to her the awesome. But in the meantime, here I am, and I'm not living in paradise.

I'm living in process.

Help me preach, please, or I will leave this stage right now.

I don't need to know the third point. I know it already.

And here I am in the middle and I.

Look back and it's awesome because I'm not what I was. If anyone is in Christ, he has a new creation. The old has gone, the newest come. I am not what I was, And I found out that if I will walk with God, he will change me and conform me to the image of Christ. Now my expectation is watch this, that as I move toward God's purpose for my life, as I get closer and closer to God, that this guy will shrink.

Guess what, Let me show you something.

The Bible says that when they recognize Jesus in the process when he broke the bread and gave the bread, watch what happened next. Can we go back to Luke twenty four thirty one, The moment they recognized him, he disappeared from their sight.

So this is what happens.

And this is going to explain a lot of why you don't feel like a good Christian, why you don't feel like you're growing.

Don't get me wrong.

Salvation is a gift, but it is a gift that you must grow into. My expectation is that as I walk with God, and as I make decisions to follow him, and I make decisions to eliminate certain things from my life that are causing me to drain energy and focus that could be applied towards my purpose, that this gap behind me will get bigger and the gap in front of me will get smaller. But guess what God does when you take a step, when you make a move, when I step, you step, watch this God moves too.

You're going to love this gold digger.

See, in my mind, the goal was stay right there that this gap goes away.

Here's what God knows.

If you think that you have arrived, arrogance is sure to follow.

So what God is gonna do? I need to do this. This is version two point zero.

God is gonna make sure that as you grow, when I step, you step, the gap stays. So you look back and you say, oh, look, I'm moving forward. But you look forward and it doesn't feel like you've gone anywhere. But I want to let you know you're right where you need to be.

See, you need grace for both gaps.

Here. It is the same grace that created this gap between where I was and.

Where I am. It's the grace I need.

I step you step to keep moving forward. So God says to everyone who's in the middle of something right now, in the middle of change, in the middle of process, in the middle of the coming, in the middle of a storm, in the middle of the fire, you step less, step gets stepping, step, stay in the middle, stem, stay in fame, step, stay in courage, step, stay least, stay.

In my hand, stay in the storm.

I wh you in the time.

God is in the middle.

I'm in the middle.

I need I need both both gaps. I need a gap that makes me grateful and a gap that makes me grow. So ye'll better sit down. I gotta start closing, and I'm I want to preach about these gaps. I don't know why it is that we think that the first gap is the grace of God and the second gap is anything but the same grace that did that.

Will do this.

He who began a good work and you will be faithful to complete it. So the disciples get where they're going to Amais and God says, oh, you thought that was the final stop. No, it's just the middle. Oh man, if you could see your life like God sees your life, you wouldn't give up in the middle. The good stuff happens in the middle. I love Netflix because I can

Now here's what I know.

If there's unresolved conflict in the show, I want to know, Wait a minute, how much time is left? Because if we're still in the middle, come on, somebody.

Your dream is.

Not over, your purpose is not finished.

This is not the end.

It's just a mass.

We know what the disciples didn't know. We know the crosses at the end, we know the grave.

Is it his final destination. It's just a mantle. It's just the middle.

The gifts is in the middle, The goal is in the middle.

I press toward the mark.

Forgetting what is behind. I will not quit in the middle. Encourage somebody next to you. It's just the middle. It's just the middle. This is just the middle. This is not the end. It is just the middle. And I think it is significant that when they reached Amais and Jesus.

Revealed his presence.

Through the scars that he suffered for their salvation, he disappeared so.

That they would turn around.

And when they got to the place they thought they were going, they found out surprise.

Look at verse thirty two.

They got up and they start talking to each other, and they said to each other, we're not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us in the middle on the road as we went.

In the mill. That's where you get it, that's where you grow. That's where he shows.

Up in the middle, in the middle of the night, when it's just you and pastor pillow and nobody left the text, you will hear his voice.

In the middle.

Whoever this is for, and whatever you're in the middle of, I want you to look at the cross again, because the Bible says that what they thought was the end emaeis where they intended to stay in disappointment and eat some bread and go to bed. Once they saw who was with them all along and realized what had been happening along the road that seemed to them trivial in something as mundane as a seven mile walk, they turned around, they got up, and they returned at once to Jerusalem.

What God saved you out of.

And start running toward what God saved you for.

And they got up at once in a moment and returned to Jerusalem.

This may be the strongest message on salvation that God has ever given me, because when I looked at the cross where he died, and I realized.

That he died on a hill called Galgatha.

Which is the place of the skull in Hermaic, and on one side of him was one thief, and on one side of him was another and the cross that brought our salvation was right.

There in the middle. I realized.

That the way that he died is symbolic of the way that I now live. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live, I now live.

It is here now.

If you're looking for the grace of God, don't look to your deathbed, and don't look to your past.

He is the great I am.

If you're looking for the grace of God, put your eyes on that middle cross between two thieves. On your left, you'll see your past. On your right, you'll see your future. But don't look at your past. You're not going that way, And don't even worry about your future. God is already there. If you're looking for the grace of God, it's in the middle. How need somebody to praise God right here, right now for his grace in the middle.

He is with me in the middle. He is with in the middle.

And maybe stand please, Maybe it's not about God getting me out. Maybe the reason he died is because he wanted to get in.

Your faith is hanging between two thieves.

What was is gone what will be is unknown. If you're looking for the grace of God, if you're looking for the glory of God, the glory is in the middle.

I know it's in the.

Middle because when Shadrak, mishak can a Beenda Gole got thrown in the fire, God didn't get them out of the fire, but lated not when the flames were at their highest, seven times.

Hotter than they normally.

Were, because they would not bow before the Babylonian king. The scripture says that a fourth man went in the furnace with the three who were thrown in.

God didn't get them out.

He got in the middle with them. Now, if you know this message is for your soul, just raise your hand if you know it's for your soul.

I want.

I want the same grace that got me out of my sin to lead me into everything that God saved me for. I want to learn to see His power, not just in my perfection. I mean even the thought that I'm going to reach that on this earth is ridiculous.

I want God's presence in the process.

When he took it, he blessed it, he broke it, and gave it. And that's where they in the middle common middle, mundane middle. The miracle is in the middle, not when you get out, but while you are in it. I know you're still struggling with the addiction man, And I know even your wife doesn't.

Know because you're scared to tell her.

God is with you in the middle, not just when you've been five years clean.

God is with you in the pig pen. He is with you in the middle.

And the same grace that stayed.

With you in the pig pen is going to bring you out.

Don't you dare quit. This is just the middle. This is just the middle.

This is just the middle. God is with you in the middle.

Well, his presence is here. John said, I looked and saw a throne in This is a beautiful picture because he said that the throne was sitting in the middle of praise.

I want us to do something right now.

This may be a little uncomfortable for you, but the reason you've been feeling stressed out and worn out, and the reason you've been trying to do what Jesus did not do on the cross, which is save himself. The reason you've been trying, the reason you've been so strained, and the reason that you've been so drained is because you've been trying to save yourself and you've been at

And for him to be in the middle, you can't stay there.

So lift your hands, say glory and praise, power and strength. This is what they're singing in heaven around the throne.

Worthy is the Lamb of God. We're singing it now.

Salvation belongs to our God, to the Lamb who sits on the throne, the power to Minion, majesty forever and ever. Put him at the center for it despite grace. You have been said through faith, not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Come on, if you're in the middle of a storm right now, I need you to lift your hands and call on in Glory'll show up in the middle of your storm, in the middle of your struggle. Come on, he's in the midst of his people.

Here have it the graces of this people and thrown him out.

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