You’re Not The Hero Of Your Story (And That’s The Point)

Welcome to At The Movies, season two. It's an idea and concept we had heard other churches had tried, and honestly, I was a little skeptical last year that it was gonna work, but I was wrong. The idea, if you're wondering kind of what you've walked into this week, is that over the next several weeks, we're gonna pull a few of our favorite movies from all different types of genres and see if there might be some spiritual lessons or maybe parallels in these stories on screen that are actually pointing to or maybe illustrating something deeper that applies to our lives, that God wants to use that to teach us, right? Jesus taught in similar ways when he was trying to connect the dots between God, who felt distant or unknown, and kind of connect that to real life. And obviously, Jesus didn't use movies in his parables, but he would point to farming or parenting or fishing and say, it's kind of the same way with you and God, or living your life in God's kingdom is kind of like a shepherd who's leading and protecting his sheep. And then all the shepherds would go like, oh, I understand. So if we were trying to explain, I don't know, what does God have to say about freedom or having courage, we might say something like this.

It's like that one scene in Braveheart, and if you've seen Braveheart, you'd go, oh, okay, I never thought about God that way. See, you're able to connect an unfamiliar spiritual concept to something more familiar, and then from that, see how that same truth would or maybe could play a role in your real life story. So today we're gonna kick off this series on Memorial Day, it's very appropriate, with what's been called like one of the top 10 best movies of all time, especially when it comes to capturing as close as possible, for those of us who have never experienced it, the horror, the chaos, the violence, the profanity, and the brutality of war, and the real cost that has been paid for freedom. Please know this, we've done our best. We really have done our best to edit out most of the offensive language. I'm sure a few will get missed. So please hear this, of all the things that war is, even when fighting for the highest, most noble cause, all war is brutal, it's profane, and it's horrific. You know, sometimes, gee willikers, doesn't convey the weight of what's happening as bullets and bombs and bodies and blood are all that you see here and smell. This movie is raw and real because war is raw and real, and people really live and people really die in war, and I don't wanna minimize it or maybe sanitize it too much and lose and maybe dishonor the real people

who have been in those trenches, putting their lives on the line, literally, so we can be free. Yeah, I believe maybe one of the reasons that our men and women in uniform, past and present, hold such a dear place in my heart is because, I'll say it, I believe the military literally saved my dad's life. When he left home, left an abusive dad, and he enlisted in the United States Army, he was shipped off to Korea, and in that season of his life, on that mission, he found honor and purpose and identity and discipline, which led to his next mission, marriage, and being a pastor and parenting me and my sister, which he faithfully served and completed without wavering up to his final breath. Saving Private Ryan. I wanna connect some super big, important truths with a few, yeah, remember that one scene in Private Ryan, and then see how those truths might, I don't know, play out in our own lives. I really wanna kind of focus on three big areas, like trying to live our life on mission, or the sacrifice and the price that it will cost and must be paid to complete that mission, and here's a big one, the difference between two huge concepts, grace and earn. So our movie begins with Private James Ryan returning to Normandy, France,

now an American military cemetery, to confront his memories from decades ago and search for the answer to the question he's been asking his entire life, am I worth the price that was paid for me? That clip was edited down from 29 minutes in the original movie to just four or five minutes, and it hardly does justice to what those men went through to prepare the way for the Allied troops to gain a foothold in France, and then on to Germany, 4,400 men died that day, with casualties around an additional 10,000. So the price of victory was high, but the mission is very, very clear, first Normandy, then Paris, and then on to Berlin, defeat Hitler, that's the mission. But life has a way of changing quickly, and for Captain Miller, played by Tom Hanks, for Captain Miller and his crew, they are about to have a new mission given to them within the greater mission, locate a private James Ryan who parachuted into France, but in the chaos of the invasion, no one knows exactly where in France he actually ended up. The mission is locate him. bring him back to be sent home due to the fact that all three of his brothers were killed in action. Two in the invasion of France, and then one in the Pacific theater of war. So the command from above, from Washington was this,

find him, bring him back, return him to his grieving mother back in Iowa. So Miller leads a team of eight men to accomplish the mission. Eight men to save one man. It doesn't make sense, and soon the men and the mission hits some shaky ground. So there's a tension throughout the entire movie around a concept that in this mission to locate and save one private Ryan feels like it's being violated, and it's the concept of one for the many. And the idea or the rationale behind it makes sense when you're planning a mission, you always sacrifice the one for the many. You never sacrifice the many for the one, but in this case, eight men are risking their lives, and by the end of the movie, most lose their lives trying to save one man who they know nothing about, who may or not be alive, don't know where he is. And honestly, at this point in the story, isn't asking to be saved. The question on everybody's mind is, what would make Ryan so important to make this level of risk and sacrifice worth it? So let's go back to the original mission, which is what? Berlin, defeat Hitler. So somehow according to the generals and the commanders above,

this side mission is part of, is crucial and critical in, is worth it in accomplishing that bigger overall mission. But for those taking orders out there on the battlefield, I'll use their phrase, it's FUBAR, it's off mission. It doesn't make sense. It's illogical. You don't risk or sacrifice the many, eight men to save one man. So Tom Hanks' character, Miller says, our duty is to follow orders from our trusted commander, especially when it's confusing. Even while you're having these internal conversations and questions about the mission, like this Ryan better be worth it, like go home and cure cancer or something, right? But the mission is clear and they keep going. I think that these questions around mission and deciding if we're gonna follow or not follow orders from our commander, I think that applies to our lives, our mission all through our lives. I know that we live in a world where many of our leaders, most maybe, political, religious, business leaders, who we're supposed to be able to look to them and trust them that they're acting in our best interest. But many of those men and women, they failed us. So now we don't trust anyone in leadership. We question everything until we feel like we have all the answers and understand what's happening

and everything that needs to happen. It all makes sense. And all of that is understandable. And at some level probably needs to happen. But here's where that question everything and approach everything with suspicion and doubt, this is where it gets us in trouble. And that's when we take all of that doubt and project that same mistrust and suspicion onto God. See, this is what happens in life. And I'm sure it's already happened for most of us. And I promise it will happen again. But it goes like this, you're living your life on mission, living and doing the things that we truly believe God has assigned us to do. And we're doing that. And there's something unexpected happens in our life. And we find ourselves like sent off on or pulled off on what seems like a side mission that feels like it's actually interfering with the bigger, more important mission. It doesn't make sense. And we slam the brakes and we say, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's happening? And we get stuck where we are. And now neither mission is taking place until we connect all the dots to our satisfaction. And then we'll decide if we're in or not. We're working our butts off at our job and we think we're doing well.

We're moving up the ladder. It feels like the mission's working, right? And then we get let go or unfairly fired or downsized or whatever. And our first response is, hey, Commander God, are you paying attention down here? Because there's no way me being fired could be part of the mission that I had in mind. I'm not sure if I even wanna be in the mission anymore. You had your mission all planned out, right? Meet the right person, get married, have a couple of kids, house on a cul-de-sac, Disney vacation for the kids, island paradise for the two of you. You had a mission and a plan and you can't even get a second date. Or how about after Pastor Jim's sermon a few weeks ago on pornography, you discover your dream marriage had a nightmare secret and the mission feels screwed up beyond all recognition. This cannot be the mission all your life. You will run into moments, seasons, events that last for a moment or an event that goes on for decades, maybe for the rest of your life. And you will think, you will pray, this is not what I signed up for. This is what I thought the mission would be like. I don't know. that this mission would include stuff like this. Even if this is a mission, if it is,

I don't know if I wanna do this anymore. Which will bring you back to this. Do I trust the one who sent me on the mission? Did I say yes to the mission or the one who said that he would lead me? I'll give you a good one. In most of our wedding vows, we say something to the effect of for better or worse, richer or poorer, sickness and in health. This mission keeps going until death do us part, right? Here's what we're promising, signing on for, covenanting together. We won't quit the mission for better or worse. Here's the problem though. We didn't know that for worse would feel this worse, this bad, this heavy, this painful, this intrusive, this unfair, this lonely. Which is why marriage must be a covenant, right? We talk about this all the time. It's not a contract. It is glued together, kept together, joined together by God because the mission is gonna feel like all is lost and you're gonna wanna walk away and desert and just run. And the only thing that's gonna keep you from doing that, keep you going, keep you from giving up, keep you from quitting is my trust. My faith is in my leader. My hope is in my commander more than my hope is in my husband or my wife

or my ability to understand my circumstances. See, you don't need faith when your life and your health and your marriage, your kids, your parents, your finances are for better. When the mission makes sense and everything's going your way, let's go, full steam ahead, take the hill, charge, right? But when life feels foobar, when it feels disconnected, failing, hopeless, surrounded by the enemy, no escape, this is not survivable, that's when you have to say, I don't know, trust or understand why or how this is a part of the mission, doesn't make sense. But I'm holding on because I know and trust the one who sent me on this mission. It's a little corny, but when I was a kid, I heard it said this way, I don't know what the future holds, but I know the one who holds the future. That pretty much says it. So why should you trust Jesus with the mission of your life when the mission doesn't make sense? And the answer is one for the many, never the many for one. See, Jesus demonstrated that for us. He, the one perfect, innocent son of God sacrificed his one life in order to save us, the many. One died for sin so that none of us have to die for sin. So in light of that demonstration of love,

his one life sacrificed for yours and mine. What makes you think that at this point in your mission, now would be the time that maybe he got confused. Maybe God made the wrong call. Maybe I got lost in the confusion or maybe God decided that now would be a good time to abandon me in enemy territory and doesn't have a plan to help me, rescue me or lead me to victory. See, I really believe this. I don't know if I believed it as I was going through it and I believe it more and more and more every time my path, my plan, my mission hits and I did not see this coming. This hurts, it's confusing. This isn't what I thought it was gonna be like, feel like. I didn't know this was part of the mission, one of those moments. This is not what I thought I signed up for. The more of those that I have gone through and held onto Jesus and followed him through those minefields and battlefields and attacked by the enemy and times when it all seemed lost, every time, I promise, every time that I trusted him and obeyed him and kept going, even when it seemed screwed up beyond all recognition. On the other side, not in it, but on the other side looking back, God used every hardship, every situation

where it seemed unfair. Every time when somebody got chosen and I didn't get chosen, every bruise, every scrape, scar, injury, punch to the gut. Everything that got dropped on my mission, he used every one of them to prepare me for the next one, a greater, more important mission that I didn't even know was coming or possible. But if I hadn't been through what I'd been through with him and if I had quit at any point along the way because it was too hard, too long, too frustrating, too confusing, I would not be here. I would not be living and experiencing this life and victory that I currently now have. If I'd quit, I'd be way back there on the beach. Off mission. Because either I didn't know the mission or worse yet, I thought that I had a better mission plan and strategy from God and I was wrong. Here's a great quote, I don't even know where it's from. When a man doesn't have a mission, that's when he becomes the mission and that's when his life falls apart. See, most of us, we're not gonna be in that situation. Most of us aren't dying physically. We're searching for a mission worth living for. Back to the movie. Next scene. After losing more men in their search for Ryan and after Captain Miller releases a German soldier

rather than execute him, the unit's beginning to fall apart and the men are ready to desert. I want to throw an idea at you. What if whatever mission that you are currently on is simply part of a greater mission, a greater destination, a greater victory, but you will never get there or experience that greater future because you gave up too soon on your current mission? See, I believe that many of us quit too soon. If Jesus is telling us the truth that in Him we are more than conquerors, that the battle belongs to Him, we sing about that, right? That the victory has already been won, that He will take all things and work them for our good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose, His purpose, His mission, what if all of that is true, but we're never gonna experience it because we quit too soon? See, I believe by experience, right, that if we will continue to trust God and continue to stay on mission, every story has a redemptive ending, but most of us won't ever see it because we quit too soon. We quit the job, the marriage, the friendship. We quit on our parents. We get tired because everything we did

was out of our own strength and ambition and we wore out and we quit too soon. We got confused and frustrated because we're only comfortable working out of our own logic, our own emotions, our own ability to understand what's going on, so we settled for less than what God was trying to get us to. So we sat down and said, this marriage, it's good enough. This family's good enough. This relationship with my son, good enough. This mission, it's good enough, but here's the tragedy. Good enough is so much less than the more than enough that God was trying to get you to, but we quit too soon. Here's another reason why a lot of us quit too soon. We tried to fight the war, go on the mission alone, like by ourselves, on our own, in isolation, and then we looked around in our four worst moments and there wasn't anybody there. How about this? What if the mission isn't all about you or what you would be willing to die for? It sounds very noble, but what if the mission is about who's willing to die for you? The mission is about who already died for you. That's why we keep going. That will always be what holds the mission and the band of brothers together, understanding that the mission is about more than me. See, no soldier, no person will last long

if they try to fight every war alone. It's about the man on your right, the man on your left. No one can fight your battle. No one can execute your mission for you or instead of you, but that doesn't mean that we were ever supposed to fight it alone. Okay, there's so much in this movie that I could preach on for like an entire series just based on, and remember that one scene? But I wanna wrap it up with probably the biggest takeaway truth for me, this tension between grace and urn. Eventually, Miller and his men find Private Ryan and it does not go the way they had imagined. Ryan asked an important question that he will ask for the rest of his life, why me? And this doesn't make any sense. Why do I deserve to go? These guys fought just as hard as me. This isn't fair. There's no way I'm leaving this bridge. I'm sure that Ryan's logic comes from a good place, a sense of duty and honor, especially after finding out that two men had died so far in the mission to save him. But that leads him to regard the sacrifice of those two lives and a duty to stay and not go home to questions that he will try to answer again for the rest of his life. What do I need to do to merit being worthy enough

to even be saved? See, this is where so many of us run into trouble trying to understand this concept of grace. Jesus offers you forgiveness and saving, not based on merit or something that you have done or need to do to deserve the gift of grace. If you could earn it or do something to deserve it, it wouldn't be grace. It would be a wage, a payment. Ephesians 2, verse eight, very, very famous passage in the Bible says this, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of your own doing. It's a gift of God, not a result of works, merit, earning, so that no one may boast. See, God's word makes it clear that none of us will be able to point to our sins and none of us will be able to point to our saving, our forgiveness and say, you know, if we were asked, like, how is it that you were saved? If anyone starts that sentence with, well, because I, because I did this, because I stopped doing this because of what I did, I bought myself into God's favor. It doesn't work that way. Sentence, the answer has to, can only start with, why am I saved? Because Jesus. Because Jesus loved me.

Because Jesus died for my sin. Because Jesus paid the debt I couldn't pay. Because Jesus gave me what I didn't deserve. That's the only reason that I or anybody's saved. Jesus paid it all. See, here's Ryan's sticking point in this movie. And our sticking point when it comes to grace. Ryan's not the hero in the story. He's the one being rescued. See, for many of us, this is a humbling aha moment. You're not the hero in your salvation story, in your forgiveness story, in your I was lost but now I'm found story. You're not the hero. No, Jesus is the only hero. See, in this scenario, you were the thing that was lost and you didn't find yourself. Jesus found you. You weren't the one who laid down your innocent life for the one that was as good as dead. No, you were the one that was as good as dead that the innocent laid down his life to save. And if he hadn't, you'd be dead and you'd be lost. So would I, me too. See, in the movie though, Miller decides that the rescue mission will go on hold until reinforcements arrive. But before that happens, the Nazis attack the city to capture one of the one remaining bridges

in all that part of France. The bridge that Ryan refuses to leave and the reason that the others will be there for the battle. In that attack, all but two of the rescue team are killed, including Captain Miller. As the fighting subsides and reinforcements arrive just in time, save the day, Ryan stands on the bridge and finds Captain Miller has been shot and is dying. And they have a conversation. As if the burden of Ryan's undeserved rescue isn't heavy enough on him already, Captain Miller's dying words to him are a devastating call to worthiness. Earn this, earn it, earn this. Thank God those weren't the dying words of Christ on the cross, right? I mean, instead Christ offered us words that should release us from any lingering sense that we need to earn anything, contribute anything to our salvation. When he said this, it is finished. With earn it ringing in his ears for the rest of his life, Ryan must strive to live a life worthy of his rescue in some vain attempt to pay him back for what they did for him. As if that would even be possible, I did enough to equal the death of six men. Their debt paid scales balanced. How will he even know?

What would he have to do to know it's finished? I've finally earned enough credits to justify the many men who gave their lives for me. In the film's final scene, elderly Ryan is standing in the American cemetery in Normandy where the film begins among rows of countless white crosses with the blank backside of one of the crosses framing the shot Ryan addresses the cross. I've tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that at least in your eyes, I've earned what all of you have done for me. Who's he talking to? Is he talking to God in those words? Is he talking to Miller? Maybe both, either way, it's tragic because Miller can't answer because he's dead. So Ryan is appealing to a memory, a ghost, a guilty memory. And God would answer, you lived your life trying to prove, trying to earn something that my son purchased for you and offered it to you for free. Ryan turns to his wife in desperate need of justification. Tell me I've lived a good life. Tell me I'm a good man. She replies, you are. And the film ends with those sweet but unsatisfying words. See, we are left, as Ryan doubtless is too, with the sinking suspicion that good can never be good enough for the sort of liberation,

the rescue he experienced, let alone the salvation we are given in Christ. Saving Private Ryan ends as it opens with a shot of a waving American flag. The bookends frame the film and its question of sacrifice and worthiness are answered in terms of national patriotism and sacrifice on the altar of freedom, to quote Abraham Lincoln. The patriotism might leave the audience with a feel-good release, but for me, it does little to resolve the film's theological tensions. For as much as there is a mission-accomplished resolution to the film's mission to save Private Ryan, it's unclear whether the saving of Private Ryan has actually occurred by film's end, at least in the spiritual and the most important sense. So allow me to propose an alternative ending. Ryan kneeling at the same cross over Miller's grave, searching for the right response to the sacrifice that was made so he could live, which would be two words, thank you. See, you don't earn grace, but you do live like it costs something. Your biggest struggle isn't the idea that grace is offered for free. Your biggest struggle is whether or not you're worthy of it. See, one of the biggest life transforming moments and freeing moments that leads to a life, not of earning or payback, but of gratitude and worship,

is when you surrender the idea that in the movie of real life, you're not the hero, but you are the one that needs saving because you can't save yourself. Jesus is the only hero. Why? John 3, verse 16. It's not emotional patriotism, it's transformational salvation. It goes like this. For God so loved you that he sent his one and only son, Jesus, on a rescue mission to save you. And when he found you, he offered you freedom, rescue, and life, eternal life, at the cost of his own life. And when you respond to what he has done for you by accepting that gift with gratitude, you will not perish, but have eternal life. It will be a life of gratitude. God, in this moment right now, I know that some of us are struggling with, I'm not worth it, I don't deserve it. And that's why we need you the most. We need saving. We need strength beyond ourselves. We need a mission and we need a leader. And all of that is found in you, Jesus. And so even in this moment, maybe for the first time, somebody didn't say,

I did not expect that I would give my life to Jesus after watching Saving Private Ryan, but I think I want to. And so right now, we just ask you, will you just be our savior, our Lord? Will you save us? We can never pay you back, but with overwhelming gratitude, we'll worship you for the rest of our lives. And God, for those of us who maybe we're off mission, our mission has gotten so confusing, we're lost out there. We don't even know where we are right now. Will you just come close and make yourself known to us right now and help pull us back in your direction. And from this point on, like you used to do years ago, will you once again lead our lives toward the greatest mission ever that you have for us. You love us, you have a purpose for us, you have a plan for us, and the craziness of this world cannot defeat us as long as we follow you, hang on to you, and call you our Lord and savior. If you're for us, who could be against us? That's the mission. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.