This Sunday we continued our middle school ministry's sermon series entitled, "Now Showing." Now Showing is all about taking films that are not meant to be about Christ and using them to point out and discuss what a life with Christ looks like. This week our movie for discussion was based on the movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs; the main idea being that God doesn't look at what the world looks at. The following is an overview of the main ideas that we taught for the sermon.
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The Caramel Onion
If I hold up a caramel apple in front of you and show it off, it's likely to look very tasty. If I also hold up a caramel onion in front of you and show it off, describing it as the same caramel apple, you are probably not going to notice any difference. A caramel onion on the surface looks exactly like an ordinary caramel apple, but as soon as you bite into you would realize that it is not anything like a caramel apple. On the surface it may have looked like one thing, but below the surface it was something different entirely. What we see when we look at the surface is completely different than what is on the inside. The same thing can be said of people. Often the way wee see a person on the outside is completely different than the way they are on the inside, which is what God looks at.
Sam Sparks, David, and the Woman at the Well
In Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, one of the main characters is a young woman named Sam Sparks. Sam throughout the movie puts on an act as she tries to mask herself to seem like an attractive, dumb-blonde weather reporter while in reality Sam is a nerdy, brilliant meteorologist in love with the science of weather. On the surface Sam Sparks is a dumb-blonde but below the surface she is someone entirely different.
When speaking of David to Samuel, God spoke, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." When the world looked at David, they saw a young boy not a powerful King. They saw a shepherd-boy not a pivotal piece in the line of the Messiah. Based on David's apperances, nobody would have picked David, but God saw something different. And even when David sinned, being a murdering, adulterer, God saw David with grace as a man after God's own heart. What the world sees is not the same as what God sees.
The same goes for the woman at the well. When Jesus encounters the samaritan woman, he doesn't look at her the same way that the rest of the world looks at her. She has had many husbands. She is a samaritan. And she's a woman. She goes to the well in the middle of the afternoon and encounters Jesus and Jesus looks at her differently. He's not affected by her race, by her gender, or by her terrible sin. Despite what others think, Jesus sees her as a child of God. Despite her sin, Jesus looks at her with grace.
How Does Jesus Look at You?
No matter what your classmates, co-workers, or neighbors think of you, Jesus sees beyond the surface. No matter what names and thoughts that you have put on yourself, God doesn't look at the things that people look at. No matter how bad of sin you have in your life, because of the power of Jesus' death and ressurection, God doesn't look at you as the sinner that you are, but sees you with the righteousness of Christ.
You know how Christ looks at you, how do you look at others?
Photo Credit: OctoberDreaming