In this sermon, Greg Boyd shows us how the movie Encanto reveals essential truths about God’s love, how we are to receive it and how we can participate in it. This wonderful story reveals how we are to live in love, as Christ loved us.
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The True Encanto
• Greg Boyd
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Greg Boyd engages the animated movie Encanto to help us see the truth of the gospel and life in Christ in a different way. This story follows Mirabel Madrigal, the only ordinary member of an extraordinary Colombian family living in a magical house. As each grandchild reaches the age of five, a magical door appears, revealing a unique gift that he or she will use to bless the community. However, Mirabel does not receive a miraculous gift and becomes the only grandchild without any supernatural ability. When she discovers the family’s protective miracle is fading, Mirabel sets out to save the magic and reconcile her fractured family. Through this process they learn that true worth comes from who you are inside. Greg explains the story further while laying out the basic plot and the climax.
Greg shares two important lessons that we can learn from this movie. First, Love Is the True Encanto. Mirabel was the only child who didn’t receive a magical gift, but it turns out, Mirabel had the greatest gift of all. Her gift of love ultimately saved the family and the community from ruin. This is the Encanto that Jesus prayed for when he sacrificed himself on behalf of everyone and everything. The Apostle Paul wrote about it in the focus scripture quoted above. Love is the only thing that lasts. Even good things that appear to be the right things mean nothing if not done in love.
Greg’s second lesson is Your Worth is Not Your Performance. The members of the Madrigal family found their value in their unique gifts, so much so that they were being broken by the fear of losing it. They are terrified of letting others down and thereby become worthless. Through this story, they realize that their significance is not based on their performance or usefulness. Instead, they have value because they are each uniquely loved exactly as they are. This is the central truth that God reveals on Calvary. Your inherent worth is not found in what you contribute to the world but in the fact that God thought you were worth going to the furthest extreme imaginable to save, heal and transform you. This means you have an inherent worth that is unsurpassable.
Greg closes the sermon by leading us through a time of reflection where we can listen to the truth of God’s love, allow this truth to work its way into our inner being, and rest in this reality that transforms us from the inside out.
Hide Extended SummaryTopics: Love, Transformation
Sermon Series: Reel to Real
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The MuseCast: August 11
Focus Scripture:
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1 Corinthians 13:1-3
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
2 thoughts on “The True Encanto”
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I’m trying to find the sermon about Imaginative prayer?
Hi Gail,
We have a whole series on imaginative prayer that is a great resource. Check it out here! https://whchurch.org/sermon_series/animate/
—Emily from Communications