The Paradox Of Childlike Faith

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Which of those titles would be hardest for the world to accept? And I would offer to you, it wouldn't be teacher, it wouldn't be leader, it wouldn't be sort of moral person. I would offer to you that it would be Savior. Because what does a Savior imply? I need saving. And if I need saving, saving from what? Saving from sin. Saving from myself. Something about me that's inadequate. Something about me that doesn't match up. Something about me that's wrong. The classic, and I would offer to you stereotypical pattern that would be, well, I don't want to be a part of something that's judgmental. Are you judging me? Have anybody heard that recently? Are you judging me as a way to sometimes address people who are being judgmental? I get that. But oftentimes as a way to deny, push back and deflect on serious self-consideration. I have a right to be what and who I am. And although that's true in a democratic culture, it's certainly not true in eternity. So, I would offer to you Savior is a big deal. And I want to thank you for the privilege and the opportunity of being here this week. If you're counting this as third week in a row, and you made it. Next week, John will be back and will be returning. And I thank you for the privilege and help John to preach the word. But especially for the privilege of speaking the theology of the cross. John dropped me off and gave me the text for beginning in Mark chapter 8. And I'm thinking, yes! This is that part of the stuff which I have learned over my years in ministry. Preaches itself. Because it is so unique and so powerful and so phenomenal. And so right angle to culture. It's just like, are you kidding me? Trying to think of some ways in which we can kind of grasp the metaphor before we kind of dive into this thing. And I would think, some of you see the set of grandkids that I had here. There was a host of them, boom, over there. And this family's got eight, which is a longer story. And seven of them were present. And what if I said to them, who would like an ice cream bar? So you would anticipate ice cream bars go over pretty good. Although every once in a while somebody goes, what else do you have? So that's another story. And Grammy, otherwise known as Mary Louise, usually has the color popsicle. So you did have your choice at our house between an ice cream cone and a popsicle. And then on occasion, they would say, what color popsicles do you have? So there's always a sort of pickiness. But I say, well, that's great. But first, I need you to come with me and help clean up the neighbor's yard. Sammy and Christine aren't doing well. And we want to lend them a hand. So before we get to the ice cream part of things, I'd like to ask you to go put on some old clothes and get out in the Florida heat in July and do some yard work with me. Do you think the enthusiasm will wane? Well, of course it will. The example is silly and obvious. But suppose that I were able to persuade them. And instead of, so we finish the yard work and we're now all sweaty and grumpy. And yes, grandkids get grumpy despite all of the rumors to the contrary. And instead of giving them an ice cream bar or a colored popsicle chosen specifically by Grammy, I take them to the ice cream store. They get to go to Scoops. You get to pick three flavors. We have a rule of thumb in my man, our house for grandkids. And that's a minimum of two. You cannot have one cookie. And there's kind of a game that we play to do that. Say, Grandpa, can I have a cookie? And I say, no. And they pucker their lips and go, Grandpa, can I have two? Yes. So you have a minimum of two scoops at Scoops. You see the difference. Well, to get to the two scoops at Scoop, we walked through the yard of my neighbor and the work and the effort. And I don't want to kind of phenomena. I want to provide sort of a simple way to kind of metaphor out in a clear language with the theology of the cross is. So for the first eight chapters of Mark, John and I and I still sub to him once a substitute for him once in a while have been talking about the amazing things he's been doing, the amazing things and the way in which he does them are just amazing. It's so cool. It's like, did you see that? A few loaves of fish and bread and everybody walked away filled up. This is so crazy. Great. Did you see that? That person couldn't see. And now they can see. Oh, my goodness. This is amazing. And those Pharisees and those Sadducees, those stuck up folks. Did you see Jesus put that in his place? Cool. Then all of a sudden, all of that coolness and all that momentum changes in Mark, chapter eight, when Jesus starts quizzing them. So Jesus moves into this transitional period and says, OK, so great. So who are people saying that I am? And then, you know, what comes next? Who do you? That's great. But how about you? Who do you say ...