I’m Part Of A Bigger Story That God Is Telling

One of the most compelling movies of this year is the Lord of the Rings. I’m sure that many of you have seen it. The movie is made in three episodes.

The first episode is entitled the Fellowship of the Ring and concerns the exploits of a group of friends who gather around Frodo Baggins, an unassuming hobbit, who has inherited the most dangerous mission in the world. His charge is to return the last of a set of five rings of evil power back to the place where it was made in order to break its power. Yet all the while he carries it, the ring exerts a corrupting, corroding effect on his own character and those around him. He is besieged by enemies who want the ring and would forcibly take it from him were it not for his little band of protectors who have pledged themselves to his defense.

Those who have joined the fellowship of the ring are an odd assortment of characters. There are three other hobbits – mild-mannered, almost comical creatures who are hardly suitable for such a mission. There is an elven prince, a bearded dwarf lord, a wise old wizard, and two men – one with a conflicted past that ties him to the ring.

All that they share in common, it seems, is a desire to see that good prevail and evil be defeated, no matter what the odds – and sometimes the odds seem insurmountable. But they are on a quest – a magnificent quest – and nothing can deflect them from it.

As human beings, there is something about us that causes us to want to rise up above our everyday lives and join in some noble exploit. We seem to need to be part of something bigger and better than ourselves. Call it the quest for the heroic. This, I believe, is what lies behind the appeal of this movie. It is a story of heroism and self-sacrifice.

Recently, I rented the DVD production of Shackleton, the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s attempt to cross Antartica in 1914. The expedition, using only the most primitive gear, was to be hazardous at best, suicidal at worst. Already an English expedition under Sir Robert Falcon Scott had come to a tragic end. Why would Shackleton’s fare any differently?

Nevertheless, when ads went out in the London newspapers for volunteers to crew this expedition, the response was overwhelming. Hundreds upon hundreds of men had to be turned away mainly because the only technical qualification they brought to the job was enthusiasm. Even so, when the little ship left England and arrived in Argentina, a stowaway was found on board.

The next two years were to be a harrowing series of disasters, each one worse than the previous, and each putting the entire ship’s crew at risk. Men struggled with scurvy, dysentery, starvation, frostbite, and drowning. Yet at the end of it all, against all odds, Shackleton managed to bring back each of his men alive – one of the most extraordinary feats of leadership and determination of the twentieth century.

Lord of the Rings is a work of fiction. The Shackleton expedition is a but a small slice of history. Yet there is a compelling true story being told right now in our Universe that dwarfs them all. It is the enormous, cosmic struggle for good over evil. God is the Author – He is telling it­ – and he has written each and every one of us into the script.

To get people to realize this, however, is the challenge. Rather than seeing ourselves as participating in the greatest story ever told, most of us have no idea why we are here. We wander around blindly on stage, uttering banalities. We try to substitute our own little story for the one that God is writing. We become so consumed on constructing our own little fantasy about ourselves, that we grow deaf to the promptings of the Director.

Malcolm Muggeridge once said that every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us; and the art of life is to get the message.

I first began to realize this when I felt God calling to my heart back when I was a teenager just out of high school. I had my whole life ahead of me, and some choices to make. Would I go on to further education, or would I enter immediately into the work world?

Against solid advice, I chose the latter. There was an immediate low-level job opening in Air Canada. I was absolutely in love with aviation, and I was confident that this job would lead to others in the airline industry, which was booming at the time. So I went to work for Air Canada. You see what I was doing? I had begun to write my story, and I had to admit I was off to a pretty good start. Free travel, passes to glamorous destinations, the cachet of working for an airline in the heart of downtown Montreal, and the fun of loving what I did.

Pretty soon I was offered a promotion to Air Canada’s computer center at Dorval Base. I jumped at it because computer technology was leading edge – it was all about your experience, not your credentials. Besides, the computer center was located right next to the hangars where they kept the big jets, and coincidentally right next to the flight attendant training center, which further improved the local scenery. It was the place to be!

The world encourages us to do what I was doing; to write our own story, to “follow our dreams”, to somehow find our own destiny and write it with no reference to God.

But this has been going on for centuries. A Biblical example of a man who did this was Saul of Tarsus. His culture and his rigorous education had given him every incentive to write a powerful story of achievement and ambition of a religious nature. In fact Saul was convinced that it was God who had commissioned him to write this story because this Christian sect he opposed was obviously the enemy of true Judaism.

But as you begin to look at the outworking of Saul’s story you begin to see a legacy of hatred and bloodshed. There is not grace and love and reconciliation. People are not being brought together. They are being torn apart. Something is wrong with the plot of Saul’s personal story.

That’s when Jesus Christ steps in and offers Saul of Tarsus a whole new challenge: “Stop writing your own story, Saul. Stop writing the story you are assuming I want you to write. Join me in writing a new story — a story that is as old as time itself, a story that is dedicated to the triumph of good over evil, love over hatred, and the redemption of a race that is sick with sin.”

Saul accepted the invitation. That involved giving up his own rights of authorship. He turned in his own pen of hatred and animosity and picks up the pen that is filled with Jesus blood and begins to write words of love and reconciliation. He becomes part of God’s bigger story.

At the age of 18, I had my own similar encounter with the Divine Author. It wasn’t anywhere near as dramatic as Paul’s. Jesus did not stop me on the road to Dorval airport; it was more like a growing realization that I was writing my own story, when He really wanted me to be part of His.

So I put down my pen and asked Jesus what part he would have me play, however big or small in the greatest story of the ages. Again, nothing dramatic happened. Gradually at first, but with increasing frequency as I followed his leading, the Divine Author led me into situations where, unbeknown to me, I was able to make a difference in people’s lives – a difference for good and for God’s cause.

It is not bragging to say this, because I am the first one to admit that the power doesn’t come from me; it comes from him. All I have done is made myself available to God to use in whatever situation he has placed me. Sometimes those situations have been pretty narrowly defined.

An example of this was while I was in the hospital. Many people – people I don’t even know – would say to me things like “You are making a difference in my life” Nurses who took care of me on the floor called me later at home to say the same thing. People here at the church have said “You have made a difference; you are making a difference.”

This is what happens when we plug into the Divine Story. This is what it means to be an evangelist. For the longest time I hated that word: “evangelist”. For me, it conjured up visions of standing on a street corner wearing a sandwich board, waving a Bible and angrily declaring that people were going to hell without God. Even the more palatable versions of evangelism still left me with the impression that I was there to get a job done and the person sitting across from me was my “target” – someone to be coerced or manipulated, or argued into the kingdom of heaven by the force of my logic.

Neither of these views put a very high view on the value of the story itself; the whole thing seemed so unpleasant and adversarial.

But when I got hold of the idea that the Gospel was a story – that it was, in fact, a good story, good news – I crossed a big barrier. Evangelism wasn’t like trying to force feed someone a tablespoon of cod liver oil; it was like offering them a tid-bit of a Krispy Kreme donut. Because the Gospel news is good – it is fantastic; it is stupendous. And the amazing thing about it is that it involves each of us personally. It isn’t like a story that happens on the other side of the world that has to sort of filter down to me. No, it has an immediate, powerful, good impact on me, here, today. Because when you buy into the Gospel, you are joining forces with God’s side in that cosmic battle against evil.

There are still many battles to be fought – personal battles, group battles, denominational battles, national battles, even global battles against things like AIDS, poverty, famine and so forth. But there is nothing more exhilarating than to be in the battle on the right side – on the Lord’s side – on the side of the Gospel.

There is an intriguing passage in the book of 2 Kings 6. We talked about it awhile back in Prayer Meeting.

2 Kings 6:8 Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”

2 Kings 6:9 The man of God sent word to the king of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.”

2 Kings 6:10 So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.

2 Kings 6:11 This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Will you not tell me which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”

2 Kings 6:12 “None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”

2 Kings 6:13 “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.”

2 Kings 6:14 Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.

2 Kings 6:15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” the servant asked.

2 Kings 6:16 “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

2 Kings 6:17 And Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

2 Kings 6:18 As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the LORD, “Strike these people with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.

2 Kings 6:19 Elisha told them, “This is not the road and this is not the city. Follow me, and I will lead you to the man you are looking for.” And he led them to Samaria.

2 Kings 6:20 After they entered the city, Elisha said, “LORD, open the eyes of these men so they can see.” Then the LORD opened their eyes and they looked, and there they were, inside Samaria.

2 Kings 6:21 When the king of Israel saw them, he asked Elisha, “Shall I kill them, my father? Shall I kill them?”

2 Kings 6:22 “Do not kill them,” he answered. “Would you kill men you have captured with your own sword or bow? Set food and water before them so that they may eat and drink and then go back to their master.”

2 Kings 6:23 So he prepared a great feast for them, and after they had finished eating and drinking, he sent them away, and they returned to their master. So the bands from Aram stopped raiding Israel’s territory.

There are two things that we need to notice about the story that God is writing:

1. it is visible only to those who have eyes to see it. Elisha could see that God was in control of this situation; his servant could not. That is why Elisha prayed that the eyes of his servant be opened in v. 17.

2. the story that God is writing brings reconciliation and unity between people. Notice in v. 21 when the king of Israel has his enemies delivered right into the palm of his hand, he asks Elisha “Should I kill them, my father?” Elisha says “Of course not – that is not why God brought them to you. Rather prepare a great feast for them so that they may go away your friends rather than your enemies.”

This is always the goal of the Gospel – it is friendship; friendship between God and man, and friendship between man and man. It is a message of reconciliation. We began today by talking about the Fellowship of the Ring. We end by talking about the Fellowship of the Cross – the vertical dimension that brings peace with God, and the horizontal dimension that brings peace with fellow man.

Paul speaks of the Gospel this way…

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

What a privilege, to be in God’s story – to be a part of the ministry of reconciliation that he is accomplishing in the world. And we have this ministry in ourselves if we are His children, His followers.

2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

What about you? Whose side are you on? Whose story are you writing?