Make Great Sacrifices, Part 1

Great Christians make great sacrifices. But don’t let that word, sort of – ooh, boy. Your human nature just says the words sacrifice and yuck go together. But I want to help change that, by the grace of God.

Let’s look at what sacrifice is. Definition: “It’s the act of giving up, destroying, or permitting injury to, or foregoing something valued for the sake of something having more pressing claim.” That’s Webster’s. I like that. It’s giving up. It’s being willing to be injured. It’s doing whatever it takes, but it’s for the sake of something that is more important, that has a higher claim.

When we witness great sacrifice among the human species, it triggers – this is just an observation – it triggers a powerful, magnetic, awe-inspiring response deep within our souls. That story is a true story.

But when you see sacrifice, when you observe it, in Christian contexts or non-Christian contexts – when you see great sacrifice, even in a movie, or when you read a book, or even when they’re doing those little clips for the Olympics, and you hear the story of this little girl that’s been up at three in the morning and practiced her whole life for this one moment on a balance beam, I have to confess, I start tearing up over that stuff. There’s something about sacrifice.

There’s something about the Rosa Parks, and the Mother Teresas, and Martin Luther Kings, and the stories of a Gandhi walking through the streets. And every time you see sacrifice played out, there’s something about how God made us that – I may not want to be the person who’s involved in the sacrifice, but every time I see it, it’s like there’s this wonderful thing that touches me, deep in my soul.

And I just thought, I made a little list of, I thought of Corrie ten Boom, of Lincoln, even back to Joan of Arc, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. I was in South Africa, if you understand the story of Mandela. You see people who, for twenty-five years, in a prison, and then coming out absolutely says to people, “We will not retaliate. No retribution. We will forgive. But we’ll get the truth on the table before we forgive.”

Amazing, amazing sacrifice. And as I observed, what I saw was that we admire people who make great sacrifices. We enshrine them. There are statues. You can go all around the world, and here’s the person who gave his life for this, and here’s the person who did this. And there are statues.

Or in the church, when you make a great sacrifice, sometimes you get in stained glass. Right? And they put you up on the wall. We honor them. We reward them. We emulate them. And here’s the question I have for you and me, as we think about making great sacrifices: Why? Why? Even when unbelievers make great sacrifices – why? What is this mystical union and soul connection we unconsciously make when we witness a great sacrifice for a noble cause or a personal relationship?

And I think the answer is that sacrifice is the clearest and greatest evidence of the extent of one’s love and devotion toward a person, a cause, or a thing. This is really clear. What did Jesus say? John 15, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friend.”

What I want you to you see is that sacrifice, the measure of our sacrifice, represents what matters the most. What we are willing to sacrifice for is what we’re most devoted to, what we love the most, what we care about the most. And so, if you ever want to know what you really worship, all you have to do is take you, and draw an arrow, and then what’s in the box toward the arrow. What do you give your time to? What do you give your energy to? Where are your dreams? Where are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to do?

And in that box, for many of you, would be your children, wouldn’t it? And in that box, for many of you, would be your job. And in that box might be, for many of you, a guitar, or a painting. And many people have sacrificed amazing amounts of time and energy to be a great musician, or a great artist, or a great athlete. But whatever you would put in that box is the object of your worship. Great Christians make great sacrifices.

Now, you need to do a little pause, because I need to do a research project with you before we go on. All right? Are you ready for this? I don’t do this very often, and I’m going to have to go through it very quickly. And some of you are thinking, You go through everything very quickly. But what I need to do is a Bible study with you, where I walk through the concept of sacrifice, and the concept of worship. Because they’re so intertwined.

But if you just sort of get a top level – Oh, yeah, sacrifice, worship. I think they’re connected. No, no, no. You miss it completely until you understand, from all the way in the beginning of the Old Testament and the sacrificial system – Leviticus – it’s a book about worship. And what’s the whole book about? Sacrifices. And so, I want to take you on a little journey. And you’re going to have to really put on your thinking cap and track with me. And I want to go through an overview study, Old and New Testament, about the relationship between sacrifice and worship. This is sort of the required course of worship and sacrifice.

Good Christians do what’s required, and make the sacrifice required, to demonstrate that Jesus is, in fact, the object of their worship. Great Christians, what we’re going to find is, they go above and beyond everything that’s required to express an overflowing love and commitment to their relationship with Christ. So, are you ready to roll? If you have a pen, you might want to pull it out, because I am going to guess that you’re going to want to make a couple notes, and I’m going to go pretty fast.

Understanding biblical sacrifice and worship. Lessons from Leviticus – it’s the first ten chapters. I’ll cover ten chapters here, in about two minutes. And you’ll say, “That’s the best journey I’ve had through Leviticus.” In Leviticus, there are five offerings prescribed for worship in the Old Testament.

Two are compulsory offerings. In other words, they’re required. You have to do them. One is called the “sin offering,” for atonement, and you’d bring a bull or you’d bring a goat, and it’s to cover your sin. The other is a guilt offering. If you would lie, or if you would steal, or if you would do something wrong, then you would bring an animal for your guilt, and come to the priest.

And so, these were required. You had to bring, at certain times, an atonement offering and a guilt offering. But there were three non-compulsory, or voluntary, offerings. The burnt offering was one to express your devotion. It was voluntary.

The grain offering was for God’s provision. The fruits and the crops came in, and you would bring in the first portion of it. And you would wave the grain before the Lord in thanksgiving.

And then, the peace offering had to do with, anytime you had – are you ready of this? – you’re an Old Testament saint. And you had just the overwhelming feeling of how good God is to you. You just say, “You know what honey, what do think? Why don’t we go to the Temple today? Why don’t we give a peace offering?”

And the way it worked is, you would bring this peace offering, and you would offer it to the Lord. The priest would get to keep part of it. Oftentimes, you would have to eat it right there. And it would be like a little party, a festival. And you would eat it there, before the Lord, giving thanks for what He’s done.

And the only observation I want you to get is this: Access to God demands a sacrifice. Okay? In other words, to come into God’s presence, you need to be atoned for, or covered. That’s a sacrifice. And then, fellowship with God grows through sacrifice. Voluntary offerings were from the heart. Compulsory offerings were required.

Second: a lesson from the life of Abraham. I wish we could open Genesis 22 and read through it, but we don’t have time. But many of you know the story. Abraham has been waiting for a son for a long time. God finally gives him a son, when Sarah is ninety. The boy now reaches about, probably, twelve, maybe thirteen years old. And God is going to test Abraham. And he says, “Abraham, I want you to take your son, your only son, whom you love, and this is what I want you to do, and go to this mountain that I’ll show you.”

And Abraham does what great Christians do. You always obey early, because later in the day, you don’t have the courage or the motivation. And the text says he got up very, very early, set off with is son, his servant. And the boy, along the way, says, “Papa, where’s the offering?” He says, “The Lord will provide.”

And you know the story. He goes up. He ties his son. He builds an altar. The knife is up. And this isn’t like a little rubber knife. And this isn’t like, well, he knows for sure. What we know is, Abraham believed, from Hebrews 11, that after the knife would be plunged into his son, the Lord would resurrect him. And the reason he believed that was, This is what God told me to do. But God promised it’s going to come through this boy. You talk about a test!

And so, what you have here is, you’ve got the requirement is to give his son. The response is obedience. And then, as the knife, he fully, willfully made the decision. And just as the knife was starting to come down, an angel of the Lord, “Stop, Abraham. Stop. Now I know. Now I know you fear God. Now I understand where your priorities are.”

Now, are you starting to get this? Sacrifice. What did He ask him to sacrifice? The most precious thing that he had. Why? To find out – actually, God knew – but He wanted to test Abraham, so Abraham could learn, and be confirmed of what matters most: “What do you worship the most? Me, or this boy?” And for us, it’s, “Me, or this wife, or this husband? Me, or these children? Me, or this job? Me, or success? Me, or money? Me, or fame?” Do you get it?

In way of summary, we learn from Abraham, God periodically tests the singularity of our devotion, through sacrifice. And before you start feeling like, Wow, this is really heavy, let me tell you why. It is out of His goodness, and His mercy, and His grace that He does that. And you’re thinking, Now, wait a minute. Are you trying to spin this, Chip? This does not sound like a merciful, good, kind thing for Him to say to this guy, “Give Me your son, your only son.” Good things, and good people, left unchecked, over time, will drift from a great gift from God, to becoming an idol in your heart.

When something that is good becomes an idol in your heart, it will destroy your relationship with that thing, and it will destroy your relationship with God. And so, out of His great mercy and kindness, there are times when He’ll tap you on the shoulder, and He’ll say, I want you to give Me this job, this only job that you love. I want you to set apart how you’re thinking about this child, or your mate. I want you to take this money, this security that you think is…

And He’ll, out of His mercy and His grace, test you, so that it does not become an idol in your heart, and begin to break down the relationship that you have with Him, and not allow the thing that was meant for good, as a gift, to become a god. Because then, it’ll destroy you, and destroy it.

The third thing we learn is lessons from the life of teaching. Please open your Bibles to Luke, chapter 14. When Jesus speaks on this one, you need to get this very directly, not just hearing me describe it. We know from Leviticus there is compulsory and non-compulsory sacrifices.

We know from Abraham that there are times when He will test you, and the way He will test you is, He will ask you to make a sacrifice about the thing that’s most precious to you. And now, what I want you to see from this passage: Jesus is going to speak on the relationship between worship and sacrifice.

Luke, chapter 14, beginning at verse 25: “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them.” Notice, this isn’t private. This isn’t with the disciples. This isn’t for the elite. This isn’t for full-time workers. Large crowds.

Here is the call: “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and his children, his brothers and his sisters – yes, even his own life – he cannot be My disciple.” If you have a pen, underline “he cannot be My disciple.”

There are some things in Scripture that are hard to understand. This isn’t one of them. It may be hard to do but, “he cannot be My disciple.” And He’s talking about priority. Obviously, there’s a picture here, that we don’t actually hate, but in comparison to our love for Him, every other relationship is so secondary, it is as though we hate them. And then, He says, “And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple.”

In other words, if you didn’t get it the first time, carry your own cross. Now, in our day, we think crosses and chains around people’s necks. He could have said, “And anyone who isn’t willing to go to the electric chair” or “to have lethal injection.” It was just a common way to die. What He’s saying is, “If you can’t die to your agenda, if you can’t put to death your agenda in order to take on My agenda, you can’t be My disciple.”

And a disciple is, what? A follower, a learner. It means, the teacher cuts the path, and the disciple, or the learner, or the follower, he follows the path. Now, you know what? I bet there was a large crowd. I think the crowd dwindled after this one. So, that’s the call. And it’s for every believer.

What’s He really saying here? “To worship Me demands absolute sacrifice. I must have supreme position above every relationship and every issue in your life.” And you think, Well, boy, that sounds pretty narrow. Who do You think You are, God? Do you get it?

And then, notice, He says, But I’m not looking for emotional, knee-jerk response. I’m not looking for people that are going to wail and cry, and say, “Oh, yeah. You’re the greatest teacher in the world. You fed five thousand yesterday. I want to be a Jesus groupie.” He kind of stops them.

And He says, “You better count the cost.” So, He says, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not sit down first and estimate the cost and see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and wasn’t able.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war with another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he’s not able, he’ll go and take a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will make terms of peace. In the same way –”

What’s the point? In the same way as you would say, Following Him, wow, I’ve got to count the cost. I’ve got to evaluate, He comes before stuff. He comes before my dreams. He comes before every other relationship. These are the demands of following Him. He says, don’t do it tritely. He says, weigh it out.

And then, notice, at the very end, “In the same way, any one of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness,” its distinctiveness, “how can it be made salty again? It’s neither good for soil” – they used to use small amounts of salt for fertilizer – “nor for the manure pile; it’s thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” From Jesus, we learn, He demands absolute supremacy in our hearts as a condition for being His follower.

And what I realized, over time, a very good thing, and a wife that I really loved, little by little, was creeping into the idol. I want to please her. I don’t want conflict. I don’t want tension. And usually, it wasn’t in conflict. But God tested the most important relationship.

And I look back now, I just can’t imagine our marriage being better. I can’t imagine how it’s opened doors. I can’t imagine the freedom that it has created, and the next level of maturity, both in my relationship with God, and my wife.

And then, what you see is – because some of you are getting a little nervous. It’s okay. You’re thinking, Everything – that’s a big word, like, everything. You mean my job? “Yeah.” You mean my…? “Yeah.” You mean…? “Yes.” And what you’re going to learn is, if you really understand who Jesus is, and if you ever grasp the depth of His compassion, and His goodness, and His kindness, the only reason He ever asks you to leave everything is because anything else is so second rate.

It’s like God coming to us, and seeing a little child down on the beach, playing with plastic pearls in the sand. And having priceless pearls, and saying to the little girl, “Give Me those pearls, because I want you to have these.” And the little girl says, “No, these are mine. These are mine. These are my favorites.” And they’re just plastic junk. But it’s all she knows.

And I think the sad, sad thing that has occurred in our world, is I think we have believers all over the world, but probably especially in America, because persecution and pain helps you see what real pearls are, and where plastic stuff is. But I think, especially in America, we have Christians hanging on to the plastic pearls of our jobs, and our careers, and our families, and our money. And God going, Oh, man, I guess you don’t believe I really love you, do you? You just don’t believe I’m a good God.