A better story

- Rev. Rick Shott

July 10, 2025

key points from this story:

• Recent movie felt uninspired and empty
• Modern sequels often lack creativity
• Bible offers a unified, purposeful story
• God’s redemption is the central theme
• Jesus’ sacrifice is the story’s climax
• Believers become part of this greater story

I watched another movie that left an empty feeling within me. The movie itself was not bad, but was it worth the ticket price. I am not sure it was worth the gas to drive over and watch it. It was a sequel of a group of sequels. Honestly, the fact that there were enough references to movies across 2 decades gave it a feel of honesty, yet it felt devoid of imagination. It lacked the spark of creativity. It was something new yet it felt uninspired. As I wrote this, I can think of a half dozen movies off the top of my head that this can describe, and more if you add the bad films. It happens a lot these days.

We strive for something new and exciting; this is our cultural goal. What often is missing in our quest for novelty is an endgame. Where something is going for the story to move forward. Without the ultimate story conclusion, the story starts to fall apart. Each successive step adds another problem each of these is likely to make earlier problems worse and the story feels strange.

Here in is the genius of the Bible. It is easy to say the Bible is God’s word to us, but we see it come together across millennia with a unified story. The story of God redeeming His people and bringing justice to the wicked. The story takes time and has some twists, but the plot is there that we might believe. This story is told by dozens, and yet the story is coherent. It may take a small amount of work to understand how it fits, but it is worth the effort.

It is a story that that starts with people sinning, and God promising help to come. You see it through people like Abraham who was willing to make a drastic sacrifice, but another one, a better one, was to come. You see it in the willingness of the prophets to face their fates, often jail or death to bring people back to God. Yet all the time we have hints dropped of a better one to come.

John wrote that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that all who believe in Him shall not perish, but shall have eternal life.” (John 3:16) This is the central point. The best sacrifice, the climax of the story is that Jesus opened the way to eternal life for all who believe. The rest of the Bible is about the consequences of that action.

This is the unified plot across the ages, and we are part of the story. This is not a story slapped together, but a plan that brings all who would believe together before His throne. In thinking about how our stories often fail, I was reminded about how great the story of God is. We have become part of a greater story. This is a great blessing for those who accept it.