At The Movies - Avengers: Endgame
For the last week of our At The Movies series, Pastor Robbie brought an incredible word bringing out biblical themes from the worldwide phenomenon, Avengers: Endgame! If you were not able to make it to our Gathering this past Sunday, know that we missed you! Unfortunately, due to some copyright concerns, we were not able to record sermons for this series. Be sure to continue to check back in at Legacy City’s Blog going forward - this was the last week of our series, we hate to see it go but we hope you enjoyed all of the different movies we were able to cover!
This final week of our At The Movies series we decided to cover a movie that has become the biggest box-office hit in history, bringing in a whopping 2.79 billion dollars - that’s right billion! Don’t worry though, there are not any spoilers in this message, for those of you who may not have seen it yet and were planning to. It would take 10 or more different dedicated blog posts to really sum up what has led to the events of Endgame but we’ll do our best to summarize the story for context’s sake. Ps. Robbie summed it up best by saying, '“Avengers: Endgame is set after Thanos used the Infinity Stones at the end of the last movie, Infinity War - He put all of these super-powered, super-mystical stones into his gauntlet, which gave him the power to randomly wipe out half of the population, not just on Earth but in the whole universe. They called this event The Snap, because he snapped his fingers to make it happen. So half of all life, vaporized.”
We are used to seeing our heroes win, and triumph over evil right? Well, this time it doesn’t quite go like that, we are faced with what seems like overwhelming circumstances. When we take a look at what’s going on in our own lives we can begin to feel like a failure - like nothing is going our way everywhere we turn. One of the hero-like characters that we find in much of the New Testament is Paul, but so often do we forget that he used to be Saul; as Ps. Robbie said, “In the midst of his most zealous act yet, Saul falls flat on his face. He set out on a mission to wreak havoc on the Christians hiding in Damascus and he failed.” Saul was blinded on his way to persecute the Christian in Damascus and hearing the thundering voice of Jesus address him ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ (Acts 9:4), he is left powerless! The first step in Saul/Paul’s journey shows us that Failure is for certain - we all fall short of the glory of God.
People deal with failure in their lives in very different ways, as the many characters in Avengers: Endgame do; from ‘Black Widow, she can't relax, she has to take control and try to fix what went wrong - we might term that a workaholic; the character HawkEye, He’s so angry and heartbroken and frustrated that he tries to take revenge on people who are still doing wrong in the world - like he’s trying to say if I can’t fix what went wrong, I am at least going to try to make something right.’ Just like Saul who has been blinded by the very one he sought to go and persecute, our heroes are struggling to deal with what has occurred - but there is good news! Failure is not final, and what we do in dealing with our failure matters! Saul was directed into Damascus and is brought into their Christian circle - at his lowest, Saul chose Jesus! Saul took his failures and he laid them down at the feet of Jesus. He didn’t come up with a new strategy.
Laying his life down at Jesus’ feet opened Saul, now Paul, into a whole new world of possibility - a world that Paul took to very quickly and seriously. In Acts 9:19-20 we see ‘and taking food, he was strengthened. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” Could we name somebody that has had a bigger impact on spreading the faith? All of his greatest feats came after his failure because he let his failures push him forward. Paul experienced failure in his life, but he did not stay a failure - it was not his identity, and it doesn’t have to be yours either! Our Bible says that we are more than conquerors in Christ, we are joint-heirs! In Romans 8:28 we see that Jesus is working all things together for the good of those that love him and are called according to his purpose; your failure doesn’t have to be final! When your SIN and your failure separated you from him, Jesus said, “Whatever it takes! I’m going to get them back, even if I have to die in the process.”
What will you choose - Failure or victory in Christ?
SOME KEY TAKE-AWAYS
Avengers: Endgame - literally the most successful movie ever made, go check it out if you haven’t!
Main Scripture Passages: Acts 9:3-20; Romans 8:28; John 3:16
Failure is for Certain
Failure is Not Final - What we do with Failure Matters.
Own your Failure, don’t let your Failure own you!
Unfortunately, due to copyright concerns, we will not be able to record audio sermons for this series - but if you would like to explore what sermons we do have recorded, visit here.
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Join us next Sunday for Pastor Robbie to speak on something special that God has laid on his heart!
We’re saving you a seat, and know that You Are Loved!