W. E. Sangster, once wrote about a frightened women on the Titanic that found her place in the lifeboat that was about to be dropped into the raging North Atlantic on that cold April night. She thought suddenly of something while seated in the lifeboat. One spectator noted, “She had a most dedicated look upon her face.” The woman asked for permission to retrieve something from her stateroom and reluctantly was given permission for no more than a moment—knowing all the while in the back of her mind her seat may not be available upon her return.
She ran across the deck that was already at a slight slope as the Titanic was slowly sinking into the Atlantic. She ran through the gambling room that had money lying on the floor and tossed about from the tremendous damage the ship had encountered thus far. Then she came into her stateroom, and ran by her safe and her drawer that contained precious family jewels, heirlooms and thousands of dollars in cash. Her focus was not on wealth or prosperity, three small oranges she kept above her bed. Death was creeping its way onboard the Titanic. One blast of its awful breath had transformed every life onboard. Near instantaneously, priceless things had become worthless. Worthless things had now become precious. And it was at this moment she preferred three small oranges to a crate full of diamonds. She now understood what she needed to sacrifice to not just survive, but to live!
This simple true story gives us some food for thought don’t it? There is something sobering about facing certain doom in our lives that seem to wake us up to the realities that what we once held precious, no longer matters. IF we really think about it, we may find some if not all the decisions and even sacrifices we made in our lifetime, how obedient was it serving and obeying our heavenly? Just as this woman on the Titanic demonstrated, our priorities change, especially when we face the realities of God—but it doesn’t have to come to that. We can try to run from it, hide from it, escape to some far distant land, but we learn quickly that we cannot hide from God, His sovereignty and His justice.
As we look at what vital sacrifice means for us, I would like for you to think for a moment—soberly and honestly. What is it in your own life, that you hold onto that is so precious that you would be willing to risk your own salvation, your own life for? Then, in the same breath, ask yourselves what am I really sacrificing for God—worship, service, obedience? Is anything holding you back? Each of us would have to answer for ourselves. So, as we start on our journey today, we are going to look further into how we, as Gods chosen children, must make a sound decision, a choice, to make a vital sacrifice for our savior!
The word sacrifice is a powerful word. The offering up of sacrifices has always been regarded as a divine institution between God and man—to suffer loss, give up or renounce something. From Genesis to Revelation, sacrifice has been the one of the core subjects of what God has and continues to do for mankind, even to date. Since mankind cannot save ourselves, only God can do it, but by His ultimate sacrifice.
Outside of Christs own example, I believe Abraham demonstrated tremendous sacrifice. Genesis chapter 22, we are told Abraham was blessed by God by NOT withholding his most prized possession, his only son Isaac. This was more or less a test, how far a person is willing to go to serve, worship and honor the living God—honoring His own instructions. Listen to the letter sent to Hebrews chapter 10. “For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the form of those things itself, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually every year, make those who approach perfect.
Let me stop here for a moment. Regardless of how it was measured in the Old testament, no sacrifice that mankind could offer would fulfil or fully cover the sin debt we each have. Sin had to be dwelt with.
2 Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins? 3 But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” God instructed a temporary measure to cover sin, by doing a yearly sacrifice from a near perfect animal. You will find most of this in the first five books, or the Pentauch.
So what is this saying exactly? Well, firstly, Jesus tells us in Matthew Gospel, “I desire compassion[mercy], rather than sacrifice, for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” As vengeful as God may seem to be, He has the ultimate compassion for each of His children, and will fulfill His will at full cost to save, not condemn. I find it very ironic that mankind chose to sin against God, as it is also our choice to obey Him. It all comes down to a choice.
Vital sacrifice friends are what WE do genuinely out of faith, hope, love, compassion, obedience and service to our heavenly father. When we desire to be close to God, we sacrifice something to do it. Why? Mainly because sin is what separates us from Him! God cannot look upon sin period! When we have the real desire to have a personal relationship, companionship and the daily walk and journey, we then will find all fulfillment, meaning and purpose for our lives! All the voids in our lives will be filled, all happiness will be overflowed, all because we choose God over sin. And it is this word sin that we read about in Pauls letter to the Romans, Chapter six. Therefore sin is not to reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the parts of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and your body’s parts as instruments of righteousness for God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the Law but under grace.
So now we have another word called grace! Grace in short is receiving something we don’t deserve. By Gods grace, we are saved, redeemed and forgiven, all by way of what Christ done on the Cross to fulfill our Heavenly fathers promise. Since the Garden of Eden, when sin entered life itself, our physical bodies are destined to die. Scripture tells us “Man is appointed to once die, and then the judgement.” But sin is a choice, being disobedient is a choice, being separated from God is a choice. No sacrifice is made to sustain or fulfill Gods love for you and me. So what vital sacrifice do we make? Well one of such is mentioned in Pauls letter to the Romans, “Therefore I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” We must make a vital sacrifice by what we say, what we do and how we live for God. Everything we have. Amen. If we are not doing that, then we are doing it wrong. I said this before, God doesn’t want weekend visits, He wants full custody! Pauls letter to the Galatians tell us the deeds of the flesh are evident, they are evil. Our flesh will naturally draw to the values of sin. “The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” Remember this friends, sin is powerless unless we grant it permission to live into our lives! Does this mean sin will not oppress us, tempt us, cause us pain and suffering even when we don’t allow it in? Scripture tells us yes sin does do these things, but we have a choice to NOT allow it to live in us. We live with results of sin all around us every day, but the sacrifice we make is vital to the point. As Paul stated, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain!” “We live in the world but not of the world.”
Eleven people were hanging on a rope under a helicopter, 10 men and one woman. The rope was not strong enough to carry them all, so they decided that one had to drop off, because otherwise they were all going to fall. They weren't able to decide which person would make the ultimate sacrifice until the one woman gave a very touching speech.
She said that she would voluntarily let go of the rope because, as a woman, she was used to giving up everything for her husband and kids, or for men in general, and was used to always making sacrifices with little in return. As soon as she finished her speech, all the men started clapping their hands. I wonder what were they thinking.
What are we willing to do to serve God? What are we holding onto that is stopping us from serving hole heartedly? What sacrifices are we willing to make? I think Chuck Swindoll said it rather well when he told of a California industrialist that addressed a group of executives at a leadership seminar. The topic of concern was employee motivation—how to get the job done while maintaining the enthusiasm and commitment of your personnel. There was a lot of advice given, but one concept stood out the most when he said “There are two things that are the most difficult to get people to do: to think, and do things in the order of their importance!” Oh how true that is!
You see friends, serving Christ is the vital sacrifice. Something we do because we want to, we choose to, we desire to. And to serve Christ, means we serve others. I am not going to stand here and tell you the life of an obedient, loving servant of God will be easy. But I will tell you without hesitation, God will not set us up for failure! REPEAT THAT. His character is to fulfill, not restrict. His will is to love everyone, but not tolerate sin. His desire is to be our intimate and personal God, and not a distant relic. Everything about God speaks to love, faith, hope and sacrifice, mainly because sin was NOT in His original design. Sin messed it all up.
Another realm of becoming a vital sacrifice is knowing our relationship to righteousness. When we place ourselves in a position to obey something, we become slaves to it. This means what we are willing to sacrifice for, we become part of it. Listen starting at verse 15. “Do you not know that the one to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of that same one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were entrusted, 18 and after being freed from sin, you became slaves to righteousness.”
If your listening to me say Amen. Grace does not free anyone to sin, it frees believers from sin! Paul tells us in his letter to Galatians, “knowing that a person is not justified by works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the Law; since by works of the Law no flesh will be justified.” Works will not save us, our faith will. You have heard, faith without works is dead! Chuck Swindoll said “The most dangerous heresy on earth is the emphasis on what we do for God instead of what God does for us.” There’s no comparison. We cannot put on our resume, I did this or that for God. It just doesn’t cut it!
So what does it look like when we do not give a vital sacrifice? I then think in terms of a dark abyss. Void and alone. When we don’t sacrifice our will, our life, our sustenance, our being and even our bodies, and not even realizing it, we become opposite to righteousness. Then we start what seems like a downward spiral or even a subtle bump in the road, into what the bible calls ‘hell’ or separation from God. Sin becomes normal. Avoiding God becomes easier. We become desensitized to sin when we tend to allow sin to rule or take over in our lives. We may say to ourselves, “I don’t mean to; it seems to just happen.” We are now sacrificing our salvation to sin. We lose our testimony, our witness as we do not give vital sacrifices to God. You may ask yourselves, “Can this actually happen to me?” Scripture tells us we can be physically alive, but spiritually dead. Listen to Pauls letter to the people of Colassia, “And when you were dead in your wrongdoings and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings, 14 having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Think of it, our sins were nailed to that cross. No longer to conquer us, having power over us. When we accept Christ by living with Christ and for Christ, we are triumphant over all things. We no longer are subject to sin! To serve Christ comes at a price. We have to surrender all to God; we have to give a vital sacrifice—meaning US!
IN closing I wanted to describe to you a good description on what it means to depend on Christ as we give a vital sacrifice. How many remember or know of Neil Armstrong’s landing on the moon? When Neil stepped out onto the vast unexplored miniature planet we call moon, he said the most famous words, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” What a true statement it was. Just think, he entered a total inhabitable environment that without his space suit, which was built and designed by some of the most intelligence men and women of nasa, all by God’s ultimate design, he would have not survived. That space suit was his support system. But because of the capabilities of his unnatural environment, the space suit, and his identification with it, he was able to regard himself as dead to the moon and live to his experience of walking around the moon alive and well. Neil became part of the space suit.
To the believer in Jesus Christ, we must understand that while we are in Christ we are no longer totally at the mercy of sin in the world, but we are alive to all the power and life that God Himself has given to us, who call Him Lord and Master. We MUST vitally give a sacrifice of ourselves to serve and worship Him. As I said before, God doesn’t want just weekend visits, he wants full custody to give us His full love, mercy and grace which none of us deserve but God is so willing to freely give. As for me, I say this often to myself. Since the Son of God has died for me, then the least I can do is live for Him, with Him and in Him. Let us revive ourselves to day friends, and become a vital sacrifice to our one true God, the alpha and omega, the great I am, our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.
In the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit.