The Hero's Journey: Navigating a Divided World with Hope

[00:00:03] Welcome to the Pursuing Faith Podcast, where we explore questions of faith, doubt, and life. I am your host, Dominic Done. Hey everyone, so a week ago today our nation was absolutely reeling with the political violence that rocked our country.

[00:00:30] Turns out I was in the middle of writing a message when all of that was unfolding and it's crazy how something like that can force you to pray and then totally rewrite your message. And so that's what I wanted to share with you today.

[00:00:44] Before we dig into that though, a couple of things I'm looking forward to in the next couple months. I'm doing an event at St. Quentin with Bob Goff and Love Does. I'll share more on that as we get closer. There's a leaders conference in San Diego.

[00:00:57] September 15th I'll be at House of Bread Church in Sacramento. So lots of things ahead. But for today I want to share with you from Acts 7. If you happen to have a Bible nearby, you may want to grab it, but we're also going

[00:01:10] to read it to you at the beginning of this message and we're going to see what God's word has to say about the story that we find ourselves in. Good morning. So glad you guys are here. It is great to be back.

[00:01:31] This last week we were visiting a different country. We were in Texas. We were out there for a wedding and then up to Oklahoma. It was a great time, but so good to be back and thankful to be here with you guys today

[00:01:48] as we get to reorient our hearts around the word of God. We're in the book of Acts today and if you have your Bible, if you want to grab it, turn with me to Acts chapter 7 and Maddie is here again.

[00:02:00] She's going to read to us from today's passage. So Maddie, why don't you take it away? Acts 7 verses 20 through 34. At the time Moses was born and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for by his family.

[00:02:15] When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. When Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.

[00:02:32] He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would recognize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.

[00:02:47] The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, men, you are brothers. Why do you want to hurt each other? But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, who made you

[00:03:04] ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday? When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.

[00:03:18] After 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight.

[00:03:29] As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say, I am the God of your fathers, the son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

[00:03:42] Then the Lord said to him, take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free.

[00:03:58] Now come, I will send you back to Egypt. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the life and example of Moses that we get to study today. I thank you God that this is not only a gathering place, but it is also a sanctuary, that we

[00:04:15] can be in this place and fix our eyes on you and discover the peace that passes understanding. So Lord, may your word that is sharper than a two edged sword just cut through all the noise in our life and souls today, bring peace and clarity and hope.

[00:04:34] And we ask this Lord in Jesus name. And everyone said, amen. Amen. You may remember if you were here a couple of weeks ago, we first began to talk about the life of Stephen and the backstory to that, of course, is at this point in the first

[00:04:51] century when the book of Acts was written, there was actually a moment of division in the church. You had the Hellenistic widows who felt that they were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food. And so the church, they gathered together.

[00:05:07] They're like, hey, we got to deal with this problem. The leaders of the church said, let's pick seven deacons, seven men who can step in and mediate this conflict. And we saw that one of these guys was Stephen.

[00:05:23] To refresh your memory back in chapter six, we see the following description of who Stephen was. It says that he was a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, that he is saturated with God's grace and power and wisdom.

[00:05:40] And on top of all that, Stephen had a heart to serve. It's what I love about him. When he was asked to wait on tables, he didn't say this is below me or this isn't going to look good on my resume. No, he steps right in.

[00:05:53] He's like, sure, I'll serve. And he did whatever it took to help others feel loved. And reading this description of Stephen, for me at least, it's like really hard to imagine why anyone would hate him. He's a good man. He's full of the Holy Spirit. He served widows.

[00:06:14] He probably owned a puppy. I mean, this guy just had a heart of gold. And yet, for the religious leaders, they're threatened by him because the fact is religion is always threatened by people like this. Religion marginalizes people on the outside and pushes them away.

[00:06:33] But the way of Jesus opens up a table and says, all are welcome here. At its core, this is a story about a simple man, Stephen, who waited on tables and yet was used by God to spearhead the greatest revival that the world has ever seen.

[00:06:53] In fact, we'll see in two weeks from today, it was because of Stephen's death that the gospel spread from Israel to the ends of the earth. There's a theologian, his name is F.F. Bruce. He said Stephen's martyrdom was the spark that ignited the flame, scattering the believers

[00:07:13] and spreading the gospel far beyond Jerusalem. So with that as our backdrop, let's dig into Stephen's last words. And the first thing you need to know is that this sermon that Stephen's giving before his accusers is essentially a sweeping narrative of how God uses ordinary people throughout history.

[00:07:36] Verses two through eight, Brian shared with us a couple of weeks ago, he unpacks the story of Abraham. Last week, we talked about Joseph in verses nine through 16. And the verses we just read, it's all about the life and ministry of Moses.

[00:07:52] Now Moses to me is one of my favorite Old Testament characters. And especially if you love the art of storytelling or you like a good movie or a good book, or if you've read books like, I think of Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, or

[00:08:10] maybe you've read Christopher Volger, he wrote The Writer's Journey. And what they do is they argue that Moses' life essentially follows the classical monomyth or what's known as the hero's journey. The hero's journey is essentially a form of storytelling that is well-known in books and

[00:08:31] movies where you have a hero who embarks on a quest, overcomes a crisis, and then returns with a newfound sense of wisdom. And these authors, they lay out six different stages of the hero's journey, which you can

[00:08:50] see all throughout different movies today that essentially overlay on the life of Moses. You have, first of all, the call to adventure. Exodus chapter 3, when God speaks to Moses through the burning bush. Then you have refusal of the call. Not me, I'm not the guy.

[00:09:09] Moses is like, hey, I'm not good enough for this task. Then supernatural aid. Exodus 4, God gives Moses the power to change the heart of the Egyptians. The fourth stage is the crossing of the threshold. In Moses' life, it's Exodus 14 where he leads Israel through the Red Sea.

[00:09:33] Then you have the road of trials for Moses. It was 40 years in the wilderness. And then what Campbell calls the ultimate boon, Deuteronomy chapter 1, where Moses then brings the children of Israel to the edge of the promised land.

[00:09:49] Now what's fascinating to me is that not only is Moses really the first in recorded history to follow this trajectory of the hero's journey, but his life has become an archetype for other epic stories. And you can just go through the list. Lion King, same thing.

[00:10:08] Matrix, Black Panther, Moana, like they all follow this same six-part journey from call to promise. I think of the book called Moses, A Life. Jonathan Kersh, he writes, Moses is the quintessential hero of the ancient world.

[00:10:29] His journey from the bulrushes to Mount Sinai, from prince to prophet, exemplifies the archetypal hero's journey that resonates through history. Have you ever wondered why it's the same story of call and crisis and then fulfillment that resonates so deeply with us?

[00:10:49] Why it is a model or an archetype for storytellers throughout the centuries? I think one of the reasons is because deep down, every human wants to be called into a story that's bigger than ourself.

[00:11:07] Like we all intuitively know that there is more to life than what we call the American dream. I think of the Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard. He wrote in one of his journals, he said, the thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wants me to do.

[00:11:25] The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. Or in the words of Dostoevsky, he said, the mystery of human existence lies not just in staying alive but in finding something to live for.

[00:11:46] The reason these stories strike a chord is that we all have that sense of longing for a deeper purpose. We don't just want to survive, we want to thrive. We don't just want to live, we want to live for something.

[00:12:01] We all want to know, why am I here? What's this all about? What am I supposed to do? And the great tragedy, of course, is that so many Americans don't know how to answer that question. According to a recent report from the American Psychological Association,

[00:12:19] Americans are the unhappiest they've been in over 50 years. A few weeks ago, Pew Research revealed that 60% feel pessimistic about the nation's future. And I think that number is probably a lot higher after the events of yesterday. We live in this time of collective disillusionment.

[00:12:41] If you've ever read, which I don't necessarily recommend but it is interesting if you want a perspective of an atheist, Albert Camus, he wrote the book called The Myth of Sisyphus. And in it, he argues that in a godless universe, existence ultimately is absurd.

[00:13:00] And he uses this image, I'll throw a picture for you here on the screen, of a man who's rolling a boulder up a rock. Like Sisyphus, he argues in the Greek myth, we expend our life like this man, rolling boulders up a hill.

[00:13:15] But when we reach the top, what happens to the boulder? It just rolls back down. And so we have to go back down and roll it back up the hill, and then it rolls back down. And we keep doing that over and over and over.

[00:13:28] And Camus, he argues that that is what a life without God looks like. There's no ultimate purpose or meaning or value. We're destined to push up rocks until we end up pushing up daisies. Centuries ago, we used to think that people mattered in the universe.

[00:13:49] Then, of course, Copernicus came along and made us realize that the earth isn't the center of the universe. Then Darwin came along and made us realize we're not the center of the planet. We're just one small part of a larger animal kingdom.

[00:14:03] And then Freud made it much worse and argued that we aren't even the center of our own lives, that we're just prisoners of hidden subconscious forces. And the conclusion of atheism and the conclusion of Albert Camus is essentially that is the story of the human condition.

[00:14:22] This is life without purpose, and it's meaningless, he says, to pretend otherwise. And those who do pretend that there is such a thing as purpose are deceiving themselves. I think of the parable that a rabbi once told of a man who walked into a village,

[00:14:38] and when he walked in, this man, he was deaf, he couldn't hear a thing. But he saw people in the village who were dancing. And the reason they were dancing is because in the center of that village, there was a violinist. And this violinist was playing beautifully.

[00:14:54] And the people of that village were so swayed and moved by this song, they began to dance together in the midst of this song. But the man who walked in the village, he looked at them, he couldn't hear a thing,

[00:15:08] and he turned away concluding that they were all deluded. I think we're handed two scripts in the story of culture and the story of our life. One script we're handed tells us that there is no such thing as a hero's

[00:15:27] journey, that there is no meaning or purpose or redemption, that we're just pushing up boulders on hills. But the other script says, and this is what Stephen is reminding us of in Acts, is that life does have meaning and that everything about who you are,

[00:15:50] the breath in your lungs, the heart that's pounding in your chest, your tears and fears and dreams, they matter. And everything in your life and every step in your journey is soaked with eternal significance. That is the story that Stephen wants us to know, that just like Moses,

[00:16:16] this ordinary man who was a shepherd in the middle of nowhere for 40 years, this ordinary man became a hero. This ordinary man was called and sent by God with a mission to the world. And what did that mission look like, and what does that mean for us?

[00:16:33] Well, I want to share with you one more passage that I think is really fascinating when you compare it to Acts 7. There's all kinds of parallels with this story. If you want to turn there, Ephesians 2, verses 1 through 7.

[00:16:48] What Paul does here, it's so brilliant, is he takes these ideas and then he makes it personal. He talks about how this was our life, how this was our journey, how we were hopeless but God gave us hope.

[00:17:04] Paul says, as for you, you were dead in your transgression and sin in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

[00:17:18] All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive

[00:17:38] with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and he seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order that in the coming ages,

[00:17:54] he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. And God's church said, Paul, he begins this chapter with a description of what your life used to look like. Like Israel, we were slaves to our sin.

[00:18:20] We were prisoners of our past, our guilt, our shame. It was a hopeless situation. But then you have two of the most beautiful words, I think, in all the Bible, but God. But God, because of his great love toward us,

[00:18:46] he made us alive with Christ even though we were slaves, even though we were dead. He didn't abandon us. Even though we were sinners, he sent a greater than Moses, his son Jesus, who rescued us and saved us and gave us new life.

[00:19:05] And now, verse 6, it says, we are seated with Jesus in the heavenly realms. Now, I think if we're not careful, we can read a verse like that and just kind of take it as Christian-y. So it's poetic. And of course, it's poetic.

[00:19:21] But I think there's much more to that phrase when it says we are seated with him in the heavenly realms. What does this mean? Notice that it doesn't say we shall be seated. We all believe that. Someday we'll be with the Lord in heaven.

[00:19:35] Paul actually uses the present tense. He says, you are right now seated with Jesus in the heavenly realms. I think there's a couple of ways of looking at this. I think on one hand, Paul is saying from God's perspective,

[00:19:49] the way he sees the story, your story is already complete. You are, as he sees it, right now with him in eternity, which makes sense of Romans 8.30, which says you are justified. You are glorified. This is present tense. In other words, since God, who is outside of time,

[00:20:12] he knows now how your story ends. It's like when you go to see a movie for the second time or third time, a movie that you really, really love, and you bring your friend to go see it.

[00:20:23] Now, even though there's tragedy in that movie, inevitably in the hero's quest, it's like you can rest watching that film again, and you enjoy the subtleties. You enjoy the nuances. Why? Because you know how the story ends.

[00:20:41] Have you found that whenever you see a good film for the second or third time, you always say, man, I saw so many more things that time? Yes, it's because you're not having a panic attack because someone died. You know the story. You know how it ends, right?

[00:20:57] And because God is eternal, he understands the whole picture. Now, it's interesting. Science in many ways has caught up with this. Physicists, they tell us that time is relative. So things such as light and gravity and black holes can actually alter the flow of time.

[00:21:17] Think of the movie Interstellar or every Marvel movie since that argues it's technically possible that there are parallel universes. So it is technically possible that there could be a universe where the pandemic didn't happen or where America is unified politically

[00:21:36] or where you made better life choices or where this sermon is only five minutes long. That is not the universe you live in, right? God, he sees the whole picture. Paul says, you're living in one reality right now. But God understands the whole thing.

[00:21:55] We live in a reality where there's injustice and brokenness. But the deeper reality, the true story is that from God's perspective, you're in the promised land. You're seated with him in the heavenly places. So that's one way I think of interpreting this.

[00:22:10] The second way of seeing this passage is that Paul isn't simply saying where we are, but he's talking about who we are. This is a statement of our identity. Why? Because in the first century, when a hero returned from his quest,

[00:22:29] when a hero conquered an enemy on the battlefield and came back to his home, there was a parade. There was a celebration to welcome the conquering hero. Again, think of the movies that depict the hero's journey. Star Wars, right? The New Hope. How does it end?

[00:22:51] There's a grand ceremony and medals are awarded. Or think about the celebration after Neo's sacrifice in The Matrix, or the Great Hall celebration in Harry Potter. In these epic stories, there is always, always some kind of celebration to commemorate the hero's return.

[00:23:12] And Paul here, he uses the same language and he says, that is what our hero has done for us. He has conquered the enemy. He has shattered the chains of sin and death. He has seated us at the right hand of God. Why the right hand?

[00:23:27] Because in the ancient world, the right hand of the king was the place of highest honor. And this to me is actually the shocking twist. Jesus is the hero, but he gives you the seat of honor. Jesus is the deliverer, but he makes you the celebrated one.

[00:23:51] This is where Christianity is so different than your typical hero's journey. This is where Christianity is so different from other religions, is that we didn't do anything to deserve this. We aren't the heroes of this. We didn't climb Mount Doom or defeat Voldemort, right?

[00:24:13] We were fighting on the wrong side. Worse than that, Paul says, you were actually dead on the battlefield. But Jesus came down, he saw us lying on the ground, he picked us up, he brought us into his kingdom, he seated us in the highest place.

[00:24:35] Even though we did nothing, God gives us a hero's welcome. In 1 Peter 1, it says, but you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.

[00:24:58] Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. That is how God sees you. We were once slaves, but now we're set free. We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, seated with him in the heavenly places.

[00:25:22] And in a world that speaks lies about who we are, in a world that constantly reminds us that we don't measure up, that we're not rich enough or smart enough or good looking enough, that we're just biological accidents from the goo to the zoo to you.

[00:25:40] God says, no, this is how I see you. Like Moses, you've been lifted to the highest place. And you are a vital part of my redemptive story. And not only that, you now have a mission. You have a purpose. You have a reason to live.

[00:26:00] And what is that purpose? Well, that's what brings us full circle back to this passage in Acts chapter 7. And I think it's so brilliant what Stephen does here. His final words talking about Moses in verse 34, right about as Stephen's about to be killed, he quotes from Exodus.

[00:26:17] And he says, I have heard their groaning. And I have come down to set them free. Now come, he tells Moses, I will send you back to Egypt. This word sent is one of the most vital words for followers of Jesus today.

[00:26:38] It's a word that you see over and over in the New Testament. It's an echo actually of what Jesus told his disciples in his last words. In John chapter 20, he said, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. The word sent in Latin is missio.

[00:26:55] It's where we get our word for mission. I am sending you. You have a mission. You have a purpose. And that mission, like Moses, here it is. You are called by God to help people be set free.

[00:27:15] In the book of Isaiah chapter 61, it says, the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

[00:27:33] And brothers and sisters, I think more than ever, that is the message that people today need to hear. One of freedom, one of hope that we have a king, that we have a hero, that we have one who will heal and restore our world.

[00:27:51] I don't know how you guys felt yesterday or how the events from yesterday hit you or impacted you, but I think one thing we all can agree on, our country needs Jesus. And he is the only one who can heal the wounds of our land.

[00:28:10] And here's the crazy thing to me, is that God has called you and he's called me to be a part of that healing process, to be the light of the world, to be a city that's set on a hill.

[00:28:26] In a time when people are feeling anger and fear, in a time where people are more divided than ever, we as followers of Jesus are representatives of a new kingdom. We are ambassadors of the only king. We are a countercultural presence of hope in a hopeless world.

[00:28:49] And in that same passage in the book of Ephesians, Paul, after saying, this is your story, you were slaves, you were dead, you were in darkness, but Christ our hero came to us and he made us the hero. He sat us at the right hand of the father.

[00:29:04] In that same passage, Paul then says, we are a new humanity. A new humanity is a place where labels no longer matter, where all the narrow ways that the world uses to identify us evaporates.

[00:29:21] The new humanity is the place where we can stand together and say, but God. Instead of hate, we're people of love. Instead of anger, we forgive. Instead of conflict, we live in peace.

[00:29:40] And in a moment when so many people do not see any good way to end the story, in a time when our neighbors and relatives and coworkers and city feel hopeless and overwhelmed, that we're just rolling boulders up hills,

[00:29:58] we have the opportunity to remind people of how the story ends, that there is a hero, someone who loves them and died for them and wants to set them free. And his name is Jesus. David Bosch, the South African scholar, he said this,

[00:30:19] to participate in mission is to participate in the movement of God's love toward people, since God is a fountain of sending love.