You Don't Have To Be Qualified | At The Movies Season 2 | Week 2

Welcome back to At The Movies. For you who are new to this series, let me tell you why we're doing this series. In the best stories, be that a book, a movie, a play, the best stories have the ability to draw the person in the audience into that storyline being presented, causing that person to kind of like, I don't know, participate in what's being presented on the screen, mostly by causing them to ask pretty good questions like, if that was me, what would I do in that situation? Would I be the hero? Would I be the villain? How would I feel if that happened to me? Would I run away? Or would I stay and fight for the right things? You know, Jesus was the best storyteller ever, and the way that he connected deep spiritual truths was by telling stories, parables, where the person listening became part of the story, and then they were able to listen and understand on a whole new level. People were amazed at Jesus' teaching. They said that he taught, this is what they said, as one who had authority, when really, simply, he just brought to life ancient truths and teaching by making them accessible so that people could understand and apply them to their own lives. So this is our second year of doing At The Movies, and in this series, most of the movies we have selected,

they're pretty big films, like with heavy dramatic themes, and then from those movies, we've pulled out truths that we can apply to our own lives. Last time, Saving Private Ryan was all about grace versus earning God's favor. This week, I wanna look at a movie that's also, it's based on a true story of actual events, although most people had no idea that was the case, but this week, I wanna take a break from the typical list of big, dramatic movies that we have drawn from so far, and I wanna take a look at one of my all-time favorite movies, never nominated for an Academy Award in any category, and many people have never even heard of it, which I really can't understand, and if that's you, it would actually cause me to not really be your friend, all right? Today, we're gonna see if there are any deep, spiritual truths for us in the movie Nacho Libre, the story of a Mexican priest turned luchador. So the story of Ignacio, also known as Nacho Libre, is actually inspired by a true story of a Catholic priest from Mexico by the name of Sergio Gutierrez Benitez. I'm just gonna call him Sergio. Sergio's early life was pretty troubled, living on the street, struggling with drugs, and at one time, actually showed up at a church looking for help, and they turned him away. Despite his initial encounter with faith,

in his struggle to get clean and then stay clean, Sergio eventually gave his life, which Sergio described as deeply broken, he gave his life to Christ and later entered the priesthood. One article I read about him quoted him as saying, I wanted to become the priest that I needed earlier in my life, but couldn't find. In the movie, Nacho's sidekick and wrestling partner, his name is Steven, and I believe that Steven represents Sergio's early life of crime and living on the streets before he met Christ. Sergio goes on to found an orphanage in Mexico, which is the premise of the movie. It's also the problem. How do you house, feed, and educate hundreds of orphans and abandoned children when you don't have any money? Sergio turns to what he knows best, fighting, and becomes a luchador, a masked wrestler, in order to win prize money that could be used to provide and protect the children. What makes the movie great is not just the real life-based storyline, but the actor who plays Sergio's character, Jack Black, I think is one of the funniest actors of our time. As a priest, Ignacio, Nacho, is awkward, unqualified, and ridiculous on all levels. As Jack Black presents Nacho to us, you just sense Nacho has no business being a priest and certainly has no place in a luchador's ring. The word foolish comes to mind.

But I think that is one of the reasons that we are attracted, or at least I am, to stories where the main character is obviously unqualified and not equipped to pull off what he is trying to accomplish. Maybe we're attracted to these kind of storylines just because maybe subconsciously we feel unqualified and ill-equipped to do and face the kind of things in our own life that need attention. And if in Nacho Libre, Ignacio can do the impossible, maybe we can too. To quote another movie that was under consideration, so you're saying there's a chance. The truth is the Bible is full of stories of similar characters, unqualified, ill-equipped, doesn't have the resume or track record to do what is being asked of him or her. Abraham, all right, was an old man and had a problem telling the truth. He lied. Moses was afraid to do what God told him to do because he said, I can't speak. David was the youngest, like his dad had forgot that he had him, son, a teenager. He was no match for Goliath. Peter was a really bad fisherman, had a big mouth, and was repeatedly cowardly. None of them really had any. marketable skills in the recruiting market. And if we were handing out Academy Awards, they all would have been in the running for

least likely to succeed. Yet God used these unqualified, ill-equipped underdogs to literally change history. So as I'm watching Nacho Libre, I'm looking for some spiritual themes or messages. I have this verse of scripture running in the back of my mind. It says this, Paul writes in 1 Corinthians, For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth. But God, favorite two words, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. So as you're watching this movie, is Nacho Libre silly and foolish? Absolutely, right? But one of the great ways that God tends to work is to choose and use men and women that most of the world would never pick to do anything great or significant. The thing that makes this way so strategic

is that when God uses the unqualified, least likely to succeed person to do something great or significant, there will be no doubt who gets all the credit and glory. That'd be God. We sing this song all the time. Look at what the Lord has done. So theme number one that we find in Nacho Libre and scripture is this. God can use the most unlikely person for what he calls them to do, no matter what they've done or what's been done to them. As a matter of fact, the more broken the past, the more evident that what is happening can only be credited to God. In real life, Sergio decides to pursue luchador wrestling in order to win prize money to fund the orphanage, but has to keep that luchador identity as in real life, fray tormenta, friar storm, secret from his duties as a priest to avoid scandal in the church. As Ignacio Nacho Libre tries to live this double life, there is tension and friction and conflict when you try to live two different lives. So if theme number one is God can use anybody for his purpose, theme number two would be pursuing God's purpose for your life. Sometimes it's gonna feel like conflict. Conflict in several areas. I'll explain.

For some of us, when we first began to follow Christ and our hearts and minds began to align more and more with Jesus, the spirit of Christ within us began to point out certain behaviors and actions in our old life that need to go. In Corinth, the people who were coming to church learning about Jesus and surrendering their lives to him as Lord and Savior brought with them a lot of baggage and muscle memories from their past that had been such a part of their everyday life they hadn't even considered that those old choices and behaviors weren't good. The way that they approached marriage and sex was very different than what Jesus was teaching, but it's all they knew. Marriages back then were considered disposable and sex as an intimate union reserved only for a husband and wife and joined together by God was a brand new, foreign, absurd concept. To them, sex was simply a recreational activity to be engaged with whenever and with whomever was available and willing. Sex with temple prostitutes was part of the pagan religion they had come from there in Corinth. So, for example, when Paul says to them, flee from sexual immorality, rearranging and reorienting that entire section of their lives

had to cause tension and friction and conflict. And some of us, we know what that feels like. You see, even if and when you know that God is commanding you to do something or to not do something, to change something, that doesn't mean it's gonna be easy to do. There will be tension, conflict, internal and external. I've met people who have said to me, you know, I used to wrestle with drinking or sexual temptation, but one day I said a prayer and from that day forward, I never wanted it or thought about it again. Listen, I'm sure God is able to do that in a person's life. All things are possible. I've just never met the person who said it and I believed him. What I have met is people involved in an area of life that God says that needs to change or that needs to stop and they prayed and every day God is giving them the grace and the strength to pursue freedom and not to go back to the old ways of slavery and also the grace to get back up when they fall down. Paul himself, who if we were gonna build a case on for the sake of argument, who's a better Christian than you or me? It would be Paul, all right? He describes his life of conflict and following Jesus like this in Romans chapter seven. He says, for I do not understand my own actions,

for I do not do what I will. want, but I do the very thing I hate. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what's right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want, that's what I keep on doing. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? And here's the answer. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's who's gonna deliver me. If Paul feels that tug-of-war conflict as he's following Jesus, we can expect the same. We can also experience conflict as we figure out how we're gonna serve him. Sometimes the conflict comes when we are called to follow Jesus, but the way that we are called to follow him doesn't fit the typical, like accepted models we and most people have ever considered as normal. Normal ways to serve the Lord, right? Before I go on, let me be clear, all right? Engaging in sinful activities, even if it's to support a noble or holy outcome, never on the table. Cheating, stealing, lying is never a part of serving Christ. Nobody can claim to be a drug dealer for Christ or a stripper for Jesus, nope. To be clear, intentionally engaging in sinful activities for even the best causes, never okay.

But nacho becomes a luchador, not for vanity or self-glory, but as a way to provide and care for orphans. He had to hide it, as did the real Sergio years ago. He hid it from the church leaders, because people in the church looked down upon it. But it wasn't a sin. Wrestling, actually by definition, was nacho's act of, ready? Worship, of service. James chapter one calls pure and undefiled religion worship, taking care of widows and orphans. Sometimes when you feel conflict as you're following Jesus, don't immediately jump to for yourself or look at another person. Don't jump to, you can't do that. You can't serve God that way. Why not? Does God's word say no? Or is it possible that you never thought about it like that? Paul writes this in Colossians chapter three. He says, whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And whatever you do includes everything that you do that's not sinful. Do it all in the name of God, right? Sergio wrestled professionally for 23 years to fund the orphanage and to feed and raise hundreds of children. Many who went on to become professionals and teachers,

and some even became priests. He didn't do it to get famous. He did it in the name of the Lord Jesus. He did it for love. See, following what Jesus is calling you to do will almost always involve conflict and tension. Nacho's tension was, can I combine my faith and wrestling? And it depends. Why are you combining them? To serve God's purpose or to pursue your own? Your tension might be, like in theme number one, can God use someone like me based on my past? Yes, God can use anyone who's willing to say yes, here am I, use me. Or can God use my past, my skills, my passions, my experiences from the past, even if they aren't very churchy, to be used to make a difference in someone's life, to help them follow God and know that he loves them? Maybe you're listening to this going, you know, I'm a plumber, I'm a mechanic, I'm a software engineer, I'm a, you know, fill in the blank. Can I use what I have as an act of worship in the name of Jesus to bring glory to God, even if nobody would have called what I do a ministry? Well, would Jesus accept it as worship? If so, go for it. Okay, one more clip. Nacho loses in the qualifier, but due to an injury to the winner,

actually, Stephen ran over his foot with a scooter, Nacho will now fight Ramses, the reigning champion. It's like David and Goliath. So we pick up the scene in the locker room before the big match, and Nacho writes a song, the song that has nothing to do with the plot line and has no spiritual significance. I just like it. He writes a song for the nun that he has a secret crush on in his mind. I think that theme number three of Nacho Libre would be this, identity is greater than performance. Nacho, a former orphan himself, spends most of the movie trying to prove he's someone, because he feels like he's failing, like everyone, the children, Incarnacion, God, even failing himself. We do the same things, though. We get it backwards, just like Nacho. He thinks that if he can perform at a certain level, that will create the identity that he can live out of, but here's the reality, the way God designed us, you don't fight for identity, you fight from it. fight from the position of I know who I am, who I'm created to be, and out of that, I fight, I live, I decide, I choose, I serve, not so that I can become something, but because I already am, and I already have a purpose, and that means that everything that I do is the overflow of that. Look at this, Paul writes this, he says,

for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing. It's the gift of God, not as a result of works so that no one may boast. You gotta catch that, all right? God does his part, and then look at our response part, not the saving part, that's all God. Our response to what he has done in us. All the creating, all the defining, all the this is your identity has already been finished, settled, God did the work for us, and God is doing the work in us. And then look at this, God prepared the mission, the good works for us to do out of what he has done for us. It says this in verse 10, for we are workmanship. We are his workmanship. Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Let me put all that together, right? You are the workmanship of God. He's able to build the person that he wants you to be, using all your past experiences. God knew what you would do, and he knew that would happen, but he predestined and he decided, I'm gonna use all things that have happened in your life, I'm gonna use them for good to show how good God is. Go back to the early days of Sergio, nacho, homeless, orphan, criminal, drug addict, and God combines all of his life, combines that with his son Jesus,

and then he's preparing something out there in the world, a good work waiting for Sergio, and waiting for you to engage in, because you're saved because of who he has created and prepared you to be your identity. You have nothing to prove. You just walk and live and use all the parts of your life to serve Jesus and others out of your identity, who God says that you are. There's a big phrase that has made its way into our culture, it's the term burnout. And usually what we're referring to is, you're really tired or you're overwhelmed doing the job or the career that you signed up for. And listen, I'm sure that there are people who just work too hard, right? I've interviewed people who I've asked them like, what's your biggest weakness? And they say, I work too hard. The truth is, you don't have good boundaries. So that's not an impressive interview question. Here's my opinion. Most of us don't have burnout. Most of the time, it's either one of two things. It might be both. First, you might be doing something you were never meant to do. Maybe you got into your job, your career, because it was the easiest or the fastest way to make money, but you actually hate your job.

And while it may pay the bills and even more, you feel like it doesn't matter. So you call it burnout, but really it's just, you're doing the wrong thing. Or how about this? You're doing the right job. You're just doing it wrong. I mean, I love my job, my career, my position. I love being a pastor. And when I'm doing it the right way, when I'm leading my team well, when I'm investing in young leaders, when I'm delegating the workload rather than trying to control it all myself, when I have margin and plenty of time to study and hear from God, when I get home at the end of a weekend and I'm physically tired, but emotionally and mentally, I'm present and healthy with Robin, when that's the normal way that I'm doing my job, I'm thriving. And I'm thinking, I could do this forever. See, in that space, when something difficult or heavy makes a surprise appearance, I can absorb it. It doesn't wreck me. When I'm doing my job wrong, when I'm trying to control everything, I'm trying to create everything. I spend a lot of my time in isolation. And then when I make an appearance,

I'm just barking out orders and throwing out criticisms. You're doing it wrong. When I'm doing my job wrong, everything is an emergency that only I can fix. And while it feels good sometimes to be the savior, ride in on the white horse and save the day, listen, after a few years of hard work, eventually it's just too much, it's too heavy. Too heavy because it's not supposed to be that hard and heavy, and it's not supposed to be done or carried alone. Now, when something actually difficult happens, it's usually just the last straw and I just wanna give up and I'll call it burnout. It's not burnout, it's exhaustion from carrying the load or carrying the load the wrong way. I have run one marathon in my life and I have no plans to even attempt another one. But one of the life lessons I learned in that training was this, stop at every water stop and grab a drink. If you wait until you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated and you're done. Your body will collapse, not because you don't wanna run, but because now you can't. In the Garden of Eden, first two, three chapters of the Bible, God created Adam and Eve to work the garden and work was actually a blessing. Then sin crept in and now what Adam and Eve

were meant to get only from God. they now tried to get from working one another or by working hard and getting value and meaning from the sweat of their brows, what they got was tired, exhaustion. But the original plan was Adam and Eve and God working together out of the image of God that all three of them shared together. That is still the plan today. See, Nacho tried to serve God in the approved, accepted, traditional roles. Those were the only things that he had even considered. But God didn't create Nacho to be a cook. He was a bad cook. And when Nacho tried to fit himself into that role, it didn't fit and he was miserable, burnout. God created him to be a warrior, a provider. And when he stepped into that role that matched up with his identity, he flourished. Three themes from this goofy movie, right? Theme number one, God can use anybody he chooses. Here's a catchy way to remember it. I taught this when I was a kid. God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called. He can do that to anybody, with anybody who says yes. Theme number two would be this, conflict doesn't mean that you're not in God's will. Conflict can actually be confirmation that you're doing exactly what God's calling you to do, even if no one has ever considered what you're doing,

a ministry that God's calling you to do. Conflict might mean you're headed in the right direction. Here's the last thing, God has given you an identity. Out of that identity, go do what God has called and designed you to do. Don't do the opposite and go do something hoping that will give you an identity or a purpose or worth. It won't, it'll burn you out. And nobody will get to experience what God designed and called you to be and do, and you'll miss it. And the world around you will miss it too. I think the reason that I love this movie so much, Robin and I watch it at least once a year. But here's why, even in the goofy actions of Jack Black and the silly, awkward, stupid songs and fart noises and costumes, somewhere in there is a storyline that we all hope is true for ourselves. God can use anybody. Conflict isn't always bad, it can actually be proof that I'm doing something right and God created me for a purpose. Purpose, remember this, is the intended reason for which something or someone exists, is done, or was created. When you're living your purpose, which really is God's purpose, you're living a life that puts God on display. Look at me, look at my life. Look at what the Lord can do through me.

When Nacho wins that final match and later buys a bus for the children to take on field trips, when the kids are eating healthy meals, what we see on Nacho's face is, I did it. Not I won a wrestling match, no, no, no. He feels the thing that deep inside we want to feel. I did the thing God created me to do and everybody around me is now loved and taken care of. At the end of every story, every movie, at the end of our life, that is what we want to believe is true about our story.