What Movies Will You Create In 2025?

What Movies Will You Create in 2025?

Scripture: Second Corinthians 10:3-5; Mark 5:25-34

Good morning Strangers Rest! I hope you are excited about what God is going to do in this place in 2025. The title of my message this morning is “What Movies Will You Create in 2025?” Some of you might be wondering what I am talking about, but just stay with me for a few moments and it will become clear.

I shared this Scripture with you the last time I stood before you and I want to remind you of it again this morning as it sets the foundation for what you are going to hear in this message. Second Corinthians 10:3-5 says, “(3) For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. (4) The weapons of our warfare are not physical [weapons of flesh and blood]. Our weapons are divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. (5) We are destroying sophisticated arguments and every exalted and proud thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought and purpose captive to the obedience of Christ.” I want you to keep verse five in mind as it says, “…. taking every thought and purpose captive to the obedience of Christ.” We are going to examine the role our thoughts play in our faith walk, especially the actions we take because of our thoughts. It is our thoughts that we create the movie scripts that we act on.

For this message to make sense to you, I want to first walk you through the seven essential steps for film making as defined by the New York Film Academy. The first step is the idea for the movie. Every movie ever created started with an idea in someone’s brain. The initial idea, which could change as the movie develops, establishes the foundation for the movie. The second step is the development of the script. This is where you put down the story, the setting, and the dialogue in a linear form. The third step is the storyboard. A storyboard is a sequence of drawings that represent the shots you plan to film. Step four is selecting the cast and crew who will be assisting you with the movie. The final three steps are selecting the locations for filming, the actual filming of the movie and then the post-production, where the final product is produced. For the purposes of this message, I will focus your attention on steps one through three and six and seven.

Every one of us creates movies daily. While our movies are not filmed and shown on the large screen, people are able to see some of our movies because we act them out. As you listen to this message, I want you to reflect on the movies you created in 2024 and the movies that you would like to create in 2025. If you could create your own movie, would your movie include you succeeding or failing? Would you have a movie of forgiveness or bitterness? Would your movie be about health or sickness? In this message I want you to think about your movies and consider if you have movies playing in your mind right now that need to be erased and permanently deleted or brought fully to the big screen that we call life. So, what movies will you create in 2025?

There was an article in an issue of USA Today that reported that in an online survey of 1000 adults “three-quarters of Americans believe the country was better off in the 1980s than it is right now.” And what is notable about the poll is that some of those who responded in the affirmative were not even alive during the 1980s. So, how can someone believe that their parents and grandparents were better off 40 years ago than they themselves are today? I believe the answer is simple: their parents, grandparents, relatives, and other adults shared stories with them about their lives in the 1980s that created vivid and long-lasting positive images in their minds of what life was like “back in the day.” This is why we often have a variety of emotional responses when watching certain types of movies. Let me give you an example.

How many of you have watched a movie and got so caught up in the movie that when the main character died you cried? Why did you cry? Emotional crying is a uniquely human behavior. Good movies embed us in another world, eliciting powerful emotions and triggering biological processes in our brain. Those processes temporarily connect us to the person and the movie in a physical and emotional way – our crying response. But let’s take this a step further. How many of you have sat in a darkened theater watching a scary movie and something happened on the screen that made you jump, shout, pull back and all the other reactions we have when something scary happens on the screen? So, why did you respond that way when it happened? You know it was a movie. You knew it was on a screen. You knew that there was nothing there that could hurt you and yet you responded as if you were in the movie yourself. Why did this happen? It is how our thoughts and minds work. We can get so caught up in a movie that our thoughts place us there even though, physically, we are just sitting there watching it. Our thoughts create movies in our minds that our bodies respond to.