To Sacrifice

[podcast]http://www.revkwon.com/podcast/sacrifice2014.mp3[/podcast] Good morning. This sermon is not connected to a series. This is a stand alone sermon that God had impressed upon me to teach on a while back. However, because I couldn’t connect it to a series, I’ve been saving this one for a while. I think as we get closer and closer to Thanksgiving and Christmas, we need to preach this sermon because our church needs to hear it. The reason our church needs to hear it is because our church knows it but doesn’t really have to embody it. And when we don’t have to practice it (that’s the same as embodiment), then the idea of it becomes abstract and imaginary, when in reality it should be practiced and tangible. This sermon is today is about sacrifice. About 18 months ago, I was reading through the Gospel of Luke and I came to a passage that I was always bothered by. Let’s read it together because this passage is our jumping point. ²³ And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. ²⁴ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. ²⁵ For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? ²⁶ For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ²⁷ But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:23-27). Here’s the reason why this passage bothered me, look at verse 23. It says that if you want to follow Jesus you have to deny yourself. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get fat because I denied myself. I didn’t get credit card debit because I denied myself. I didn’t get cavities because I denied myself. Let’s be honest, not many of us, if any of us, will deny ourselves. Just think about it. But Jesus clearly says that we can’t follow Jesus without denying ourselves. So if that’s the case, then the question is: are we following Jesus because I definitely ate two bowls of ice cream after eating that bland green salad for dinner. That’s why it bothered me. Then it struck me. Jesus was saying: When you live not to lose, you have already lost. I want to put this in a sports analogy. When a football team has a lead, and all they are doing is playing it safe and not trying to score, but they’re milking the clock, they run the risk of losing the game because they are unwilling to go beyond where they are. So in life, that means that when we start getting older and hoarding what we got because we think what we have so great and awesome, we don’t realize that we’re missing out on things that are out there waiting for us. Here’s what’s more interesting. When we live our lives trying to find an easier way out because we think life is so hard, we often make the mistake of not being prepared to face what’s coming next. Let’s watch this video. Write this down: Sacrifice is an intentional decision made every single moment. The guy in the video intentionally, it means that he made the choice to sacrifice less and less of his effort not in one moment, but in two moments. He cut his cross twice thinking it would be easier to carry. But then he realized why he had to carry such a big cross. He didn’t realize that the sacrifice he was making to carry that cross was designed to help him later on. But that’s how we make most of our decisions in life, isn’t it? We make our decisions thinking that we can’t do it now, we don’t want to do it now and so we choose less sacrifice now only to realize that if you sacrificed more then, that now your life would be easier. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just wait a few years and you’ll know that you regret things because your failure to sacrifice. Let me give you some examples: piano, homework, friends, etc. I want to move now to another story in the Bible. The reason I’m going to this other story instead of hovering in Luke 9 is because of what Jesus says in verse 25: For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? This only makes sense in light of Genesis 22. Let’s go there right now in our Bibles.  ¹Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. ² Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” ⁹ When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. (Genesis 22:1-2, 9-10) What you are willing to sacrifice for God dictates what you believe about God. Do you see that? Abraham had one son and he was willing to lose it all for God because he trusted God. This isn’t something people do normally. Abraham was ready to lose everything he had in the world. It was his one and only son, his heir. Isaac was more important to Abraham than anything else. You know what else is very interesting about this passage? It is written in spiritual parallelism. You like that term? I just made it up. It’s like literary parallelism, except its spiritual. Look at verse two again in your Bible and in your notes. It says, “take your son, your only son, whom you love…. sacrifice him there…” I don’t know about you, but this is exactly what God did with Jesus, isn’t it? Yes, it is. Look at it. Abraham was willing to sacrifice everything for God. His son was the most important thing to him and he was ready to give it all up for God. What do you think that action and response says about what Abraham believed about God? What do you sacrifice? What are you willing to sacrifice? Doctors sacrificing self to fight ebola. Freedom fighters in the 60s fought for the freedom and liberty of all colored people. Jesus sacrificed himself for sinners. God sacrificed his one and only son. What do we sacrifice? An hour in service? Do you know if you sacrificed 15 minutes a day, out of the 1,440 minutes we have in a day, we would, in essence be able to read the entire bible from beginning to end once every single year? Wouldn’t that be saying something about we believe in God? But we can’t even sacrifice 15 minutes, can we? But we can sacrifice 8 hours a day on facebook, Instagram, twitter, snapchat, Netflix, etc. Let’s keep going because it’s not just the posturing of sacrifice, it’s also the act of sacrifice that means something. Verse 11. ¹¹ But the angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. ¹² “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” ¹⁵ The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time ¹⁶ and said, “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸ and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” (Genesis 22:11-12, 15-18) I don’t know if you noticed it in this story. But if you look at the story very carefully, you will see that Abraham sacrificing Isaac isn’t really the point of the story. The point of the story is that sacrifice is obeying God even when we don’t want to, or have to, or makes it difficult for us to. Look at what the Prophet Hosea writes: For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6) This is truth, that Jesus obeyed God in his sacrifice. When we choose to sacrifice, we are obeying God in making the decision to put God over ourselves. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) Sacrifice now leads to blessings later. How can I embody sacrifice? In small group today, I want you to think about this question. Jesus became sin, that’s how he sacrificed himself for us. Nobody expects us to become sin, that’s impossible, but there is something we can do. Let’s pray.