Surrender

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. Welcome, everyone. That was a beautiful worship service. I was talking to a couple people before service. It really just feels like talking to family. We eat together. We live life together. So I feel super comfortable, as comfortable, I guess, as a guest as you can. But I think today's topic is actually really relevant. We just got off Pastor John Sender doing an awesome series for the past four weeks. And then Pastor John came. But today, the topic is going to be surrender, the relief from control. And so we do not have a pastor that doesn't practice what he preaches. John has surrendered control to me in a true heroic act. So I'll be presenting today. He's actually away with some dear friends in Gainesville, Florida, attending a wedding. So it's really not like he had a lot of options. We had guest Peter John as third string quarterback here to kind of finish it up. But at least he gave me the light and completely non-controversial topic of surrender and free will. So we'll get through this together. But he'll be back next week to restore any theological damage or anything. Hopefully it will be good. But I appreciate you guys bearing with me today and just having this conversation together. But that's actually the heart of today's message. It's really what choice do we really have? Have you guys thought about that? Just the illusion of control. We think we have so many choices, options, and possibilities that we're free agents to make these decisions. But quite honestly, we don't have that much control over anything. And if you've lived any life, you've probably lived that experience of the unexpected car wrecks and life changes and job switches. In James it says, come now, you who say, today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. For what is your life that you are just a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes? Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. Robert Burns penned these famous words, the best laid schemes of mice and men, gang aft agley. Which if you're not caught up on your 18th century Scottish idioms, like I wasn't, that translates to often goes wrong. And I know it's old Scottish language, but y'all probably get the drift or you've at least heard that from mice and men. You know, we presume that the more choices that we can make, the more shots that we can call, the more plans that we put into place to go exactly the way we want them to, that the better our life will be. David Zoll writes that the goal of life, we presume, is dominion. Blessed are those who are in control of their schedule and their career and their children and their future. And oh my goodness, I don't know if you guys feel this way. We just live in a crazy time where we're constantly pushed to take control. I don't know if you guys have iPhones or smartphones. You probably have devices that track your steps and your heart rate. And we read books about how we need to take complete control of our children's emotional well-being and not traumatize them in any way. And we get daily reports on how much time we're spending on different apps and on different websites. Everything is just so data centric. You know, we live in a time where control has really been commercialized. And our lives are optimized to maximize our sense of control over pretty much every area of our life. But what happens when our plans gang-aft agily? I don't even know if I'm saying that right. But I think that's a pronunciation. Today we're going to look at the story of a man's life. A story about a man who we actually never hear from. But he's the main player in the story from the Gospel of Mark. And his life is fully out of control. He is at the mercy of others completely. He has no agency or at least little agency. And we're actually going to be looking at the story of the paralytic who is lowered in front of Jesus. So you all can read along with me if you have your Bibles or your smartphones. Also, right at this QR code, if you scan that, that will take you to the YouVersion Bible app. You can find the event for Thrive Community Church this morning. You can see the full notes. So we can all be on the same page together. But all the points that are going to be made from this sermon today are going to be extracted and taken from this passage. So feel free to read along with me or read on the screens. I think that should be up there as well. But we'll read in Mark chapter 2, 1 through 12. Now some scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts, why does this man speak like that? He's blaspheming. For who can forgive sins but God alone? And immediately Jesus perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves said to them, why do you ques...