Stuck In The Middle || Pastor DaShawn Robinson

You're not late right on time. You're right on time. Right on time. Right on time. You're right on time. I know it don't look like it but you're right on time. I know it don't feel like it but you're right on time. You're right on time. He's on the way and you're right on time. You're right on, you're right on, you're right on time. Hands high, hands high, hands high. Hands high, balcony to the front row because I'm saved. I am saved, sustained, always, because I'm in the hand of God. I am saved, sustained, always, because I'm in the hand of God. Family, while your hands are lifted, while your hands are lifted real quick, the scriptures tell us, it gives us a description of God. There's several descriptors that define and identify the nature and character of God. One of those descriptors is that he's the author and finisher of our faith. Last time I checked, when an author writes a book, they don't just write the first words. They also write the last word. I don't know what word you've received this week that may not have set well with your soul, but can I encourage you that God has the final say. He has the last word over the diagnosis. He has the last word over the test results. He has the last word that supersedes the email. He has the last word that supersedes the argument.

He has the last word that supersedes the trauma. He has the final say because He's the author. Father, your word tells us in Proverbs 18 and 10 that your name is a strong tower. The righteous run in, and they are safe. People didn't always take care of us or handle us well, but Lord, your hands are safe. Your word also tells us that in your presence is the fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. Lord, your hands are safe. So whatever we're carrying today that may have us emotionally unstable, mentally erratic, or physically unwell, we thank you for the reminder of your safety. And I pray that everyone watching online or in this room physically receives the gift of your security. The earth is firm and secure because, Lord, you reign, and you are robed in majesty. You are robed in majesty and girded with strength. There is no battle that you cannot win. So we pray now in the presence of this atmosphere that you manifest perpetual revelation of your security. In Jesus' name, amen. Change church. Put those hands together, and let's thank the Lord our God. Come on. Let's thank Him. Let's thank Him. Let's thank Him.

He's so good. He's so good. As you grab your seats, what's up, Change family? What's up, what's up, what's up? Y'all happy to be in the house of the Lord? Listen, for those that don't know me, my name is Pastor Deshawn. I have the privilege of serving in this seat. On our pastoral team, I'm so excited and humbled by the request of our senior leader to bring the word to you today. Can y'all do me a favor and make some noise? I don't got a lot of time, so I don't want to have to tell you to do it more than once. Can we make some noise for the greatest leader on this side of heaven, Pastor Darius Daniels and our lovely first lady, Pastor Shamia. Y'all ain't loud enough. Thank you. Listen, we're so grateful for this opportunity. And listen, if this is your first time here, Change is a church that we don't want to embarrass you, but we do want to acknowledge you. And we want to welcome you to Change Church. And here's what we're going to do. Everyone whose first time it's not, they're going to give you a resounding round of applause just to let you know how grateful we are for every first time guest and visitor. Come on, let's thank God for them.

And we have a special gift for you from our pastor, if it's your first time, you can scan that QR code, or you can text the word guest to 609-454-0042. And you'll get a gift directly from the office and the desk of Dr. Darius Daniels. And listen, I'm running out of time, but I'll sacrifice a little bit of my sermon to do this because this is meaningful for me. And listen, outside of the gift of Jesus Christ and the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, the greatest gift God has ever given me is sitting in the front row. Can y'all make some noise for my wife, please? Amanda Robinson, come on. Thank God, thank God. We thank God for her and my beautiful girls. One of them sleep, one of them sleep. Emery is asleep, but the big ones are up. Y'all make some noise for my daughters. And y'all listen, I wouldn't usually do this, but my mom-in-law's in town. My mom-in-love is in town. Make some noise for my mom-in-love. We thank God, we thank God. Listen, I'm running out of time, so we got to get to the Word. If you're ready for the Word, say, I'm ready for the Word. I heard you're good on this side. I don't know if I heard you.

Are you ready for the Word? All right, y'all, let's go to Luke chapter six. Luke chapter six, the gospel of Luke chapter six. Here's what it says. It says, on another Sabbath. Yeah, I got to read Luke five to see why I read it with frustration. Another Sabbath, Jesus got to explain that he's the Lord of the Sabbath. On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and taught, and there was a man there whose right hand was withered. His right hand was withered. The scribes and the Pharisees were watching him to see whether he would cure on the Sabbath so that they might find grounds to bring an accusation against him. And this is what Jesus does. Jesus knew what they were thinking, and he said to the man who had the withered hand, come and stand in the middle. He got up and he stood there. I want to talk from the subject, stuck in the middle. Stuck, look at somebody say stuck in the middle, stuck. Stuck in the middle. Now, family, I am the third born of six children. Somebody said, my God. Yeah, it was a crowded house, it was a crowded house. I'm the third born of six children. I have three brothers, I have two sisters, but my youngest brother, he wasn't born

till I was about 14, going on 15. And there was a long stretch of my life, about a decade and a half, where I remember being one of five. I had two older than me and two younger than me, which means I knew firsthand what it felt like to live in the middle. There's a peculiar ambivalence that comes with being a middle child, or my middle children can testify that a kind of identity limbo that more often than not either manifests in rebellion or it manifests as low self-esteem. Because you're not quite old enough to be trusted with autonomy, but not quite young enough to be spoiled with all the attention. You're too old to be babied and too young to be believed in and entrusted with responsibility. Now, middle child syndrome is not a clinically diagnosed thing, but it is a cultural phenomenon. And if you ask any middle child, they'll tell you the middle puts you on a search for identity because you never quite know where you fit. And if we're honest, this does not just apply to middle children. Many of us in this room who are not middle children. and we'll very, very, we are very, very unlikely to volunteer for the discomfort of the middle in many areas of life.

When my family would make long road trips from Brooklyn, New York, down to Florence, South Carolina to go see my granddad, every time we stopped at a Buc-ee's or a Wawa, I don't know what y'all, Buc-ee's or Wawa, Wawa, but okay, all right, all right. I don't want no beef, I don't want no beef. Every time we stopped at a Buc-ee's or a Wawa or stopped to get gas, when we raced back to the car, one of us who wanted to sit in the front always yelled, shotgun. But out of years of road trips, I never heard one of us yell, middle. Because even at a young age, we wouldn't volunteer ourselves for the discomfort of the middle. I just got back from New York City from a ministry assignment yesterday, and the girl that takes care of my flights, when she called me a few weeks ago to book the flight, she said, she said, pastor, you want the window seat or the aisle seat? Rocky, she only gave me two options, and it hit me, she just knew that if we had the chance to choose, nobody chooses the discomfort of the middle. We even find this, uh-oh, hold on, might step on some toes. We even find this real in the house of worship. Shout out to our dream team, especially our host team. They have a weekly, shout out, shout out.

They have a weekly obligation to guard us against alienation. So they have intentional instruction to seat us in a way that we are a community and that makes space and room for as many people as possible, but sometimes we give them a hard time. Because we prefer the end seat. Whether it's for sincere reasons like we want to run up for worship, or whether it's for slightly selfish reasons because we want to be the first to the shuttle, but even in the house of worship, we don't like. Scootin' over to the middle. I would contend that even our Savior knew the discomfort of the middle. He hung suspended between two thieves on a hill called Golgotha, and the two thieves next to him earned their punishment, and he was stuck on the cross in the middle of them, knowing he had earned none of it. He was framed by fabricated charges of treason by the Roman government, and he was also condemned by false religious charges of blasphemy by Jewish and religious leaders, and he was in the middle of ecclesial and judicial warfare. He hung suspended between carnage and reconciliation. He was suspended between his own divinity

and his own humanity. He knew what it was like to be in the middle of the throne of heaven and the turf of the earth. He knew what it felt like to be close to the end, but also not so far from the very beginning. Even Jesus understood the middle. He is intimate with the discomfort of the middle, and here's the tension of the middle, if we could be real. Here is the friction that we all wrestle with. The middle contains the reality that there's too much trauma to go back, but too much unknown to go forward, so I find myself stuck. I am caught between a past that I don't want to revisit and a future that I don't yet trust, so I'm stuck in the middle. The dysfunction was too damaging to go back, but the unknown is too scary to go forward. I'm stuck in the middle. Going back to that job was stressful for my mental health, but the prospect of entrepreneurship is too risky for my family. Going back to that relationship is too toxic, but the dating pool is too contaminated. I'm stuck. I'm stuck. Stuck in the middle, and that is where, that is where I want us to. to send and land our plane on the landing strip

of this liturgical lesson in the gospel of Luke. This man, withered hand, probably hiding it because certain laws restricted you from being part of community if people know you had certain conditions. And Jesus calls him to the uncomfortable place of the middle. And notice, church, the room is not empty. It's not just this man and Jesus. The scribes and the Pharisees are sitting right there and Luke exposes their exact motives. They aren't there to worship, they are there to watch. They are watching to see if Jesus will heal on the Sabbath. They are hunting for any excuse to accuse him. It is intentional, it is insidious, and they are actively rooting for him to fail. I need to take a quick sermonic sidebar right here. Has anyone in this room or watching online ever just been minding your own business, trying to do right by people, trying to help people, trying to serve people, while someone else is lurking in the shadows waiting for you to mess up? Have you ever been in your workspace just building what you build, helping what you help, lead what you lead, and people are lurking for your downfall? They are spinning narratives, they are whispering behind your back, they are secretly plotting demise, but let me help you understand

the spiritual dynamics of this text today. When people are actively trying to see you fail, it is usually a sign that your life is fruitful. Amen. Because when you walk in your God-given assignment, you agitate hell, and I don't know about anybody in here, but God said the reason you're getting the ridicule, the reason they're hurling the insults, the reason all of the unfounded accusations are coming at you is not because you're out of place, it's because you're. Amen. You're right where you are supposed to be. Make sure we put this in context, watch this. The scribes and the Pharisees are the ones who are watching for Jesus to make a mistake. I wanna put this in context. The scribes were trained scholars and experts in Jewish law. They were tasked with not only documenting, but preserving and teaching laws and tradition to the first century Judaistic community. The Pharisees were another group of well-respected teachers within the community of Judaism. So these are not just anybody watching, this is not just anybody watching for Jesus to fail. These are trained and respected leaders in the community. And you know the problem I had, Pastor Eugene? It felt like the reason they wanted Jesus to fail is because they are actually positioned to be the one to help the man with the withered hand.

But since they did not help, they are hating on the one that's willing to be obedient to God's will. They don't hate you, they hate your ambition. They don't hate you, they hate your focus. They're trying to figure out why they couldn't be obedient to the very power they too were supposed to walk. This isn't just anyone watching Jesus closely, these are religious leaders. And I know that there's someone in this room that has been questioning themselves. You've been looking at the sudden baseless opposition being hurled at you. You wonder what did I do wrong? But I came to encourage you if you are watching, if they are watching and waiting for you to fail, it's not a sign of your defeat. It is not a sign that you are wrong. It is not a sign to stop helping people. It is proof that God is using your obedience to shift the atmosphere of the space that you're in. So before anybody is healed, before anybody moves, you've already got the whole drama in one room. A man who can't move his hand. Scribes and Pharisees scouring Jesus' every move for failure. And a healer who's about to call him front and center. And according to the text, y'all, according to the text, let me get verse six on the screen.

Watch this, here's what it says. The text says, on another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and talked. And there was a man. there whose right hand was withered. The word the text uses for that hand is the Greek word kaseros. And it only means dried up. Dried up. We get medical words from it. Anybody in the medical field, the condition for someone with dry eyes is xerophthalmia. It means they have excessive dryness in the eye. Any botanists who like gardens and like plants, there's a word for plants that grow in dry conditions like cacti. It's called xerophyte. It comes from that same word kaseros, which literally just means dry. But watch how the gospel of Mark says it, because Mark records this same thing in Mark chapter 3, and he uses a particular grammar structure that opens the whole thing up, saints. Mark doesn't just call it dry. Mark says the man had a hand that had been withered. That grammatical structure suggests that this was not something he was born with, but it was something, it's a passive grammatical form. It's something that happened to him. It's not suggesting something that the man was born with, but it's suggesting something that happened to him. The hand could grip, it used to be able to lift, it used to be able to carry, it used to be able to hold, and then something that happened to the man dried it up. I need you to catch this because it changes the lens of how we see this text. This is not a man who never had use of his hand. This is a man who lost use of his hand. And Jesus is not giving him something he never had. Jesus is about to restore something that should have never left. Jesus is about to address the grief of something he used to be. Good God almighty, I feel a prophetic push there because some of us are going into the second half of the year, and we need a Holy Ghost thrust to remind us that sometimes the dry season you're in is not because you did something, it's because something happened to you. And we just got out of, we just got out of Humanology, right? The Humanology series. And I want to put something on the screen for you because I don't want you to miss this. Just because something in your life withered doesn't mean you're wicked. I'm trying to help free somebody that's been blaming themselves for all the bad things that's been going around. You've been telling yourself you're the cause for all the destruction. You've been telling yourself it's your fault, it's your mistakes.

But just because something in your life withered doesn't mean you're wicked. Sometimes the circumstances drain the life out of what was once dynamic. And here's what the Gospel of Mark also gives in his rendering of this same story. The Gospel of Mark says that the man's hand was withered, Dr. David, but it doesn't say from what. Because sometimes in our spiritual lives, in our spiritual journey, things happen to us that are micro traumas, and micro attacks, and micro fractures, and we don't realize that something is leaking over the course of time. And next thing you know, you're public with something withered and you don't know that the drying up happened in private. Some dryness was done to you. You're not quite sure why your prayer time feels like you hit a wall. It's not as engaging as it used to be. You're not quite sure when you come to church why you don't feel like lifting your hands and singing like you used to. You're not quite sure why it feels like your marriage. Y'all ain't mad at each other. Y'all don't hate each other, but it's like y'all functioning but not fascinated. It's like you're not famished, but you're also not full. Something has dried up. And according to an article by the Cleveland Clinic, y'all, the hand is one of the most neurologically dense parts of the body. While the whole body is made up of approximately 60% water, the hand itself, due to its complicated network of bones, muscles, nerves, tendons, tissues, the hand actually contains about 75% water. So when the text calls it dry, it's not just describing a withered limb. It's really suggesting that a part of him that should have had water... I Wish I had more time a part of him that should have had water did not have it Let's be I want to be clinically integrous about this here Okay, when a limb withers and atrophies the problem isn't just a sudden lack of moisture The problem actually starts somewhere further upstream is not the moisture of the water that should be there That's the problem. That is the symptom The problem that's upstream is a nerve and a blood flow issue The dryness everyone can see downstream is merely the symptom of a blockage upstream By the time any area of your life looks wither to the public the real damage happened in private Ambassador Christian, this is not just clinical This is also canonical meaning it's in the canon

it's in the scripture because Leviticus says that the blood is the life of the body and John 4 Jesus says that water is is a metaphor of living water There's this water that you won't thirst again if you drink from so whenever you see blood and water those twin vehicles work as reminders of vitality that should be in your soul And Some of us Your life is not a defect in your design. There's a disruption in the delivery It's not that water is not in the body in this man's hand, it's just that the water is not in the place it should be And Sometimes in your soul you think you've been disconnected from the body of Christ You think you've been disconnected and God don't want nothing to do with you and God has said no no I didn't disconnect you. It's that that the place that you're dry you haven't given me access to Jesus God said the place that you drive you thought you could do that by yourself You came to me for the thing you couldn't do but you forgot to call on me for the stuff that you thought you could Gotta rush through this thing watch this y'all watch this watch this watch this watch this Watch this cuz I don't want you to miss this Cory God Jesus tells the man come stand in the middle And whenever at least in my context whenever I've heard this word preached I Intentionally didn't read the part about Jesus telling him to stretch forth his hand But sometimes we can focus so much on the miracle of the hand that we overlook the miracle of the stand We look at what's withered but we overlook what's working The First instruction is not to stretch forth your hand. That's what's withered the first instruction Stand and I don't know who I need to prophesy to Online, but God is saying if you would stop focusing on what's not working in your life He said I want to release an abundance in your life. That can only come when you're willing

To stand up don't let the break-up knock you down Stand up. Don't let the heartbreak knock you down Stand don't let the unemployment Don't let this year close with you getting knocked down get back up Having done all You stay Some of us have been complaining about what doesn't work Lord, I don't have no friends Don't I don't have no community Lord? They gatekeeping all the business secrets all the entrepreneurial secrets and you don't realize you got information in your hand through your phone So even though people ain't helping you there's information accessible. Stop looking at what's not working and ask God. Where do you want me to? Lord I had to move to this city and you sent me here. This ain't even my hometown I don't even know why I'm here and God is saying I know you don't have family You don't have community, but don't overlook what is working like small groups and change track and dream teams. I need you to He calls him he calls him to the middle He says he says use what works Not what does it I work on what doesn't work I need you to use Well, I wish I could stay here a little bit long Need you to use what works look what it says another important detail to note Remember Luke is a physician by trade. He's a doctor. So so he is not just consumed Sometimes he's obsessed with the details Right. So if you read the gospel Luke you're looking through the lens of a doctor who cares about details and Luke Write something in his account that Matthew and Mark do not write in their account of the same story Luke says Didn't just say the man had a withered hand it said it was a withered right hand Luke didn't just focus on the wither he focused on which Hand it was we got to understand historically in the ancient world. Your right hand wasn't just anatomy It was your economy It was the hand that earned the bread It was the hand that swore the oath

It was the hand that extended the blessing the hand that carried your honor So when Jesus steps into this moment understand he is not just performing an orthopedic miracle He is not just repairing tissue. He is reconstructing a life And there's five things I want you to see that gets reconstructed there's five things because this man Gets this miracle He obviously gets strength back So your strength Because he gets that strength he now can probably work again with his hands so he gets livelihood And I I would imagine Kenya that that what he's going through probably It's probably causing some lack some lack of of honor within himself. So he's probably going through some shame so he gets his dignity back The right hand is also the hand where you extend a blessing to someone so he actually gets to be a blessing again I don't know why I feel this prophetically but this summer in the room It's like your resources have run dry and you're like Lord. I love to share. I love to care I love to take care of people and you're like Lord Why are you making this happen to me when you know? I just want to help people can I prophesy to the 70 of you that that applies to that? God is you're storing your ability to be generous again. He's restoring your ability to be a giver again He's restoring your ability to not have to be stingy with your recent I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay, he he gets his strength livelihood dignity capacity to bless someone and As I already mentioned he probably was excluded from certain activities within the community so he gets his access to the community back strength livelihood dignity capacity to bless rightful place in the community five restoration strength Livelihood dignity capacity to bless someone rightful place in the community I don't know if you've been weak because life has worn you down I don't know if this economy has caused you to get laid off

I don't know if you have been walking in shame because the trauma you have to experience I don't know if you've been wanting to be more generous I don't know if you've been isolated because you haven't felt like you've been around community But I came to let you know these five things are being restored and it's in this atmosphere And if your release of praise right now, God said whichever one of those that applies to you I dare every unemployed person that needs livelihood back. I dare you to release a prophetic praise Every person that's been feeling like you're by yourself in this season release a prophetic praise I need every person who's been worn down by work worn down by relationships Worn down by economy worn down by resources to say Lord restore what's dry I That's not close watch this I don't want you to forget I Don't want you to forget the importance not of asking God to get you out of the middle But the type of person it takes to say Lord use me in the middle Because Watch this Whenever Jesus scripturally watch this thread when he puts someone front and center. It was never just to heal that person The middle is never just a healing station Even though it's a healing station It always becomes something much bigger. Look at the pattern in Mark 9 and in Matthew 18. He centers a child in the middle of disciples who are arguing about greatness and The middle he brings a child to the middle and the middle becomes a classroom the classroom is the place Jesus calls you to when he is using your life to teach others a Principle or concept they have wrong about him He did it to Job because they thought that if something bad happens to you it mean you did something wrong So Jesus puts him front and center God puts him front and center and says no I'm gonna flip and invert your theology and show you even good people gotta go through So the middle can become a classroom In Luke 8 he centers this bleeding woman who touched to him of Jesus's garment the healing was private It says the woman she kind of pressed through the crowd

She touched him. She backed away Jesus says who touched me he brings her front and center and Even though her miracle was private the middle became a pulpit This is when Jesus calls you to the center to encourage others by using a private miracle He has done for you and turning it into public praise and I know I gotta go my time is up But is there anybody that Jesus has blessed in private? I dare you to publicly praise to encourage the person down your road that whatever you're going through I'm a witness that he can heal he can deliver Watch this So the middle can become a classroom The middle can become a pulpit The middle can become a classroom the middle can become a pulpit the middle can become a It's a good classroom And the middle can become a pulpit in Mark 10. He centers this blind man named Bartimaeus From out of a crowd after Bartimaeus his blindness He's healed and after he gets healing the scripture says he's be key becomes a devout follower The middle can become a commissioning This is the precise place where God uses your crisis to ignite your calling. Oh My god, geez, I gotta go y'all don't don't yell like that cuz we're gonna be here by centering Bartimaeus Jesus transformed a blind beggar into a bold devout follower When God pulls you into the middle of a hard season, it isn't just a break I mean it isn't to break you it is to increase your conviction and cement your commitment to follow him all the way So the middle can be a classroom The middle can be a pulpit The middle can be a commissioning and in Luke 19 and we'll wrap up here. You see it happens again with a man named Zacchaeus He's alone at the top of a sycamore tree He's hated by his community as a corrupt and deceptive tax collector

But Jesus sees him in the middle in the tree at the top of the tree and calls him out of hiding into the center of the road Jesus goes to eat at this man's house afterwards and in spite of the spite of how the crowd feels about him People were complaining. They were saying Jesus shouldn't do it Zacchaeus is kicking back enjoying a meal with the Savior here the middle becomes a banquet This is the place who we're going out on this point So if you don't release your praise off of this, you must not remember what he's brought you through But this is the place where God calls you to display the true depth of his grace It is where the public has to stand by and watch the undeniable proof that despite your past God still chooses you Despite your mistakes God still chooses you God still chooses you despite what you messed up in when your foot slipped his mercy I need about a thousand of y'all to open your mouth If you know that God pulled you in the middle to make it a classroom Make it a pulpit, make it a commissioning or make it a banquet Lord remind your people of your grace and your mercy that fails not So here we are My note takers take a picture of this so I want you to forget this Nobody that Jesus calls front and center Leave the middle as just a healed person every single time Jesus places someone in the middle it is so the moment can refract beyond you it either is going up to give him glory it's going out to encourage the community you do life with or it is pushing back against the lie of the enemy that he has told you about your past and it moves you forward into your calling so I dare somebody to step out of the shadows come out of the back refused to hide and find holy contentment right in the middle of what you're in before you pray another prayer of God get me out of this I dare you to just make a bold prayer Lord what are you teaching somebody through my

witness Lord what are you showing about your glory what are you proving to people through what I am standing in the center of I don't know why I'm here I don't know why you brought me here but I dare you to release a praise as we get out of this building and let God know Lord you can use me right in the middle you can use me in the center of it here's what we gonna do close this with a prayer God gave me a prayer for you is it all right God gave me a prayer for you here's what it says I want you to receive this I want you to receive this father in the mighty name of Jesus we stand against every assignment of the enemy that has tried to restrict the flow of your life within us we ask right now that you remove the lingering impact of every soul injury every traumatic crisis and every season of unanswered prayer that has clogged the spiritual arteries of our hearts your word declares that the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty to God through the pulling down of strongholds therefore we actively cast down every vain imagination every demonic lie every high thing that dares to exalt itself against the knowledge of God we bring every captive traumatizing thought into absolute obedience to Christ Lord break the spirit of alienation wherever the enemy has used my injury to create division in my heart Lord cause us to become closer and more intimate with our destiny that is rounded grounded in Christ Jesus we command that the separation dissolves right now help us to embrace you help us to embrace your word and grant us the strength to mute the echoes of every trauma so we can hear the whisper of your truth clear the channels of Holy Spirit with the enemy tried to wither what you made dynamic let the blood and the water rush back into every dry place in Jesus name change church shout amen and give him a great praise in this place