1. The Movie:
The movie “Ratatouille” starring the voices of Patton Oswalt as Remy, an anthropomorphic rat who is interested in cooking; Lou Romano as Alfredo Linguini, a young garbage boy who befriends Remy; Ian Holm as Skinner, the head chef of Auguste Gusteau’s restaurant; Janeane Garofalo as Colette Tatou, a rôtisseur at Gusteau’s restaurant and the staff’s only female chef; Peter O’Toole as Anton Ego, a restaurant critic; Brian Dennehy as Django, Remy’s father and leader of his clan; Peter Sohn as Emile, Remy’s older brother; and Brad Garrett as Auguste Gusteau, a recently deceased chef.
Remy is a rat, constantly risking life in an expensive French restaurant because of his love of good food, as well as a desire to become a chef. Yet, obviously, this is a rather tough dream for a rat. But opportunity knocks when a young boy, who desperately needs to keep his job at the restaurant, despite his lack of cooking abilities, discovers and partners the young Remy. Its up to the two of them to avoid the insane head chef, bring the rest of Remy’s family up to his standards, win his partner a girl, and, of course, produce the finest Ratatouille in all of France.
2. Quotes from the Movie:
– Hans Linguini wants to survive in life’s humbling adventure. Working as a garbage boy of a famous restaurant “Auguste Gusteau”, he tries to hold on to his job for dear life as a garbage boy.
By accident / chance he meets this rat Remy who can actually cook. They make an alliance to work together in a hap hazard way to become chefs. The world sees the rat as a pestilence to get rid of, but Linguini realize it is his ticket out of staying a garbage boy the rest of his life.
In the process Linguini get some experience while Remy live out his dream of cooking good food and spicing up people’s lives by controlling Linguini by pulling his hair.
Isn’t our lives sometimes just like Linguini’s Hans? With the Corona virus a lot of people lost their jobs. Now you might go and do a job that you weren’t trained but have experience in for and for much less money.
Then God enters our life in some sort just like Remy (submission – not to say God is a rat), maybe one of your relatives passed away or this Corona thing made you question, what life is really all about?
Now submission for someone who does not really live as a disciple is almost like a curse word. They see it as a weakness, as an resignation of their free will, abuse might follow if you give into submission, etc.
Now to be submissive you have to be humble and to be humble you have to trust God. I think God’s biggest challenge with our lives is to help us to become humble (did not pride made the devil turn against God, so that he wanted to be God – Is 14:12-15) after we trust Him. Why do I say that? If we trust God really we would obey Him (Jn 14:15-23), isn’t it. Having a submissive attitude is one of the wisdoms from God (Jms 3:17). Now we know that obedience to God equals love in God’s eyes. So the fruit is an indication of where your heart is at.
What did Jesus say, “by their fruit you will recognize them.” (Mat 7:15-20)
After Linguini trusted the rat (being somewhat of an embarrasement) he learned to cook and won back his fathers restaurant. If we allow God to lead us through our submission / denying ourselves we really become the men and women God has planned for us to be.
3. The Bible Scriptures:
– As you study the biblical concept of submission Hans, one of the most important things to learn is that God wants us to have a submissive attitude. He does not want us to submit with resentment, resignation, or bitterness. He does not want our submission to be legalistic. He wants it to come from the heart because of our trust in Him, because of our confidence that he honors submission.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name
– Submissiveness was an attitude found in Jesus. How do you see submissiveness in Jesus Hans?
- Francois, Jesus was God in the flesh.
- He had the rights to all the perks, dominion and authority.
- Instead He made himself nothing. He went from hero to zero willingly.
- My question is why did He make himself nothing Francois?
- I think is to demonstrate to us His real character by becoming a servant.
- Jesus showed us His ultimate love by sacrificing Himself on the cross for our bad, sin.
13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, 14 or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. 15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. 16 Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. 17 Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.
18 Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. 19 For it is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. 20 But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. 21 To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps
– Hans once we realize that Jesus Christ was the perfect model of submissiveness, we realize that submissiveness does not mean certain things.
It does not mean:
a) Lack of conviction, Francois. It does not mean that you are spineless and have a flabby character.
b) Silence. When we were younger our parents used to say to us: “Zip it!”
c) Violating your conscience. Now you have to give up everything you believe in.
d) Weakness. Submission does not mean you are weak but that you know who you are and does not have to prove anything to anybody.
e) Inferiority. It means you see yourself before God first and realize your position in the world.
Instead submissiveness, as we see it in Jesus, does mean:
i) Surrender of self-interest. It is not me, me, me anymore Francois. Life does not revolve about me.
ii) Yielding personal rights in order to benefit others. If we have Jesus’ dream of seeking and saving the lost, that means just living for comfort and pleasure is rather quite dull in comparison.
iii) Trusting God. Are you in control of everything? If not you better trust God.
Some people think to submit means to do nothing, but we see in Jesus’ life that submission means trusting God and that is hardly “nothing”.
– In view of what we see in Jesus, which Christians should be submissive Hans?
- Francois the real Christian should be submissive.
- He sees his place in this world and acts accordingly.
- People who are not submissive are the real ones with strength of character.
- Every Christian should be submissive.
7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded
– Ultimately to whom are we to be submissive?
- Firstly to God Francois.
- To people God has placed over us in the Lord.
- To our parents, because hopefully they have more experience and want what is best for us.
- To our bosses.
- To the government, even if they are corrupt like the Romans in Jesus’ day.
- To the laws of the land.
- To one another out of reference for Christ.
4. Close
– What a challenging subject hey Hans. It is such a subtle one but very powerful.
- Yes Francois I learned a lot today. I did have some wrong impressions of what submission really is and the benefits of it. I know though that it is going to be tough to submit to my boss because sometimes he can really be rude and abusive using his office power.
– Please close us out in a prayer Hans?
- No problem.
- Morning King of kings and Lord of lords.
- Father is is such a priveledge to study your scriptures and gain real wisdom that is lasting.
- I know that Lord living in the world it is not easy making myself nothing like Jesus at all.
- But that is what you call me to be is a servant.
- If I have a big spiritual ambition to be like Jesus I will go the the extremes of making myself a slave.
- Lord I know that a slave has no rights and cannot be entitled about anything.
- Yet that is what comes up in our hearts so often. The media pushes us to be self sufficient sorting out all our own problems where in the Kingdom of God we are really a family that cares for each other.
- We cannot project our guilt and disgrace of our sin on other people, they might just want to help us.
- Lord I do know now that submission is not a lack of conviction, silence, violating your conscience or weakness.
- I do know that submission means surrendering my self-interest, yielding personal rights in order to benefit others and to trust God.
- I know Lord if I submit to by resisting the devil you will bless me.
- Sometimes to resist the devil I have to get open with my sin in my heart to get all the gunk out.
- Thank you so much Lord for this study that Francois and I did, it really help me to see submission in a positive light.
- Amen.
