The Matrix with Paul McDonald and Dan Horner (Part 1 of 2—The Matrix as a Picture of the Gospel)
Paul McDonald and Dan Horner look at The Matrix (1999), starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, and Carrie-Ann Moss, as a picture of the Gospel. You are asleep and need to wake up. Your choices matter: will you take the blue pill of ignorance or the red pill of truth? There is no purple. You have the power and authority to go into the world and do good, but it’s not going to be easy. There is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.
Walk with us today as we discover God’s truth in this movie.
Quotes
Our invitation comes through our choices, and not usually very big ones to start out.
We come to God, not looking for Him, but looking for an answer to a question.
We know something is not right with the world, but we don’t know what it is.
The ultimate human position of resignation: “Ignorance is bliss.”
Your life is the byproduct of the choices you make.
Neo wouldn’t have arrived where he did without a supernatural sense of destiny and calling on his life.
Without freedom, there can be no love.
The truth can be ugly and difficult to deal with.
You are called into this epic story, and you have a role to play, but you must make a choice.
The red pill isn’t easy, but it’s where you will come alive as a man.
Music is the language of the spirit, but the language of the heart is story.
We know there is more because we would never go to a movie telling the story that the world tries to give us.
What you choose to believe or not believe will not change what’s true.
We have power and authority to go into the world and do good, but it’s going to resist us. We have to learn how to fight.
Mr. Anderson had to die so that Neo could live. The same is true of us. The old us has to die so that who we are meant to become can live.
I was learning about God, but I wasn’t living a life with God.
The Father has created a way for good to win.
If I don’t understand the submission, then I don’t have any power.
Themes
Matrix as a picture of the Gospel:
We are asleep and need to be awoken. We are driven by the idea that something isn’t right with the world-we know there must be more to life than what we see. We would never choose God without His intervention (past, present, and future) to continue to enable us to walk the path. Like Neo, we have been watched since before we knew God existed. We have been born into a system intended to destroy us as humans. New believers need training, equipping, a reorientation to the fact that everything they thought was true is a lie. In order to take down the system, Jesus had to be human. Jesus came to break the system and bring freedom and life. The old us has to die so that the new us can live. We are called into the greater mission, this purpose. Jesus was the beginning of a movement that continues in our lives today.
Our choices matter, but God determines the outcome.
The choice between submission and the sucky road
As parents, we have to allow our children to make bad choices, and suffer the consequences of those decisions, so that they can learn. God works the same way.
Blue pill=ignorance is bliss, living in the world. Red pill=redeemed, seeking the truth. But most of us Christians try to live with a purple pill.
The red pill isn’t easy, and will cause you to be rejected by the system.
Reality is more than our senses. Otherwise how can you explain love, beauty, trauma, tragedy?
You have an enemy, and he’s coming after you.
Resources
Website for Mission Uprising: The Outpost: https://www.missionuprising.com/carolina-outpost
“Therefore it says, “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” - Ephesians 5:14 (ESV)
“So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” - Revelation 3:16 (NIV)
“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” - Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)
“Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” - Mark 10:27 (and Matthew 19:26) (ESV)
“When the seventy-two disciples returned, they joyfully reported to him, “Lord, even the demons obey us when we use your name!” “Yes,” he told them, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning! Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you. But don’t rejoice because evil spirits obey you; rejoice because your names are registered in heaven.” At that same time Jesus was filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, and he said, “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding these things from those who think themselves wise and clever, and for revealing them to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way. My Father has entrusted everything to me. No one truly knows the Son except the Father, and no one truly knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” - Luke 10:17-22
Questions
Where do you come from?
What is your purpose?
Do you feel like there is more to life than what you are experiencing?
Do you feel more like your asleep or awake?
Where do you feel like Cipher: Ignorance is bliss? Where are you resigned to your existence?
What longings, desires, or questions have you stuffed into a box to be hidden and banished forever?
How have your choices led to the life you’re living today?
What area of your life feels like the end of the rope?
What roads have you taken that don’t work?
What is the storyline the world is telling you every day? How does that match up or connect with the story line found in the Bible?
How would you define reality?
What is your belief about the devil, Satan?
How does the idea of an enemy reframe your story?
How does learning about God look different from living with God?