Resources For "Surprise! You Belong!" Series From Each Harderwyk Preacher
Pastor Bill Lindner - Celebration & Fusion Preacher
Humility: The Beauty of Holiness by Andrew Murray - I mentioned this book in the sermon and it's impact on my life for many years now. Humility is the theological term for the heart posture of "becoming like a little child." Murray writes: "Humility is the only soil in which the graces take root; the lack of humility is the reasonable explanation for every defect and failure in the Christian Life. Humility is not so much a blessing or attribute along with others; it is the root of all." - p. 3. You can get the book in an updated language edition (very helpful!!) at NO COST by CLICKING HERE. This is a Kindle e-book format. You may need to download the Kindle app - CLICK HERE for that - for your smartphone, tablet or computer.
Pastor Aaron VanDerVeen - Watershed Preacher
From "Mark: An Introduction and Commentary" by Eckhard Schnabel - "The emphatic ‘Amen’ saying states that to receive the kingdom of God requires accepting it like a little child. Just as children are completely dependent upon their parents, so receiving the kingdom of God requires utter dependence on God. The word receive reflects the passive stance of little children: they need their parents to take care of them; they receive their parents’ care and provision as a matter of course. People who refuse to be ‘like children’ will never enter the kingdom of God. Jesus underlines the active stance that is required of people who desire to belong to God’s dominion."
From "Mark" by Ronald Kernaghan - "Mark has presented children in the material that follows Jesus’ second passion prediction as those who stand at the bottom of the social hierarchy. They are the ones his disciples regarded as unimportant. They are the little ones (9:42) who were in danger of being trampled upon by those who are struggling to assert their own importance. If someone had asked Jesus whom the kingdom of God belonged to, he or she might have expected Jesus to name a person like the man who ran up to him in the next incident. The idea that the kingdom of God belongs to people who are like children is a thoroughly subversive idea.
Jesus’ statement that we should receive the kingdom like a child should be understood similarly. It is an ellipsis. The idea is not that the kingdom of God should be received as something of little worth in the eyes of other people, but that it should be received in the way that a child would receive it. A child would receive the kingdom as something to which he or she was not entitled. It is not a matter of right or privilege. It is not even a matter of covenant, although Mark takes pains to portray God as one who keeps covenant even with people who are faithless. The kingdom comes as a gift. We receive it in the same way we receive our worth. They both come as unearned expressions of God’s love and righteousness. It is impossible to enter the kingdom of God on any other terms."
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