Self Sacrifice

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Principle: Paying the price through dying to self or self-sacrifice means the power or liberty to make right choices in submission as a servant to God and others. Best of all he willingly sent his beloved son to die so you would be spared the pain of death.

So he decided that he was going to surprise her the next day. His name was Bud.

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Over the past few Sundays I have been leading my youth through the book of Genesis, so when it finally came time to present the story of Abraham and Isaac I began to look into the common biblical themes of sacrifice and a willing heart. In the end my lesson became both an Old and New Testament tale. This lesson spans over four different tales of sacrifice and the lessons we can take from each of them. Lesson 1: Abraham and Isaac Abraham is the father of Israel and viewed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims as a strong pillar of their faith. At age seventy-five God has promised him a son, but God did not give him a son through his wife Sarah for over twenty-five years. During this time Abraham tried to force God to work several times, and each time it failed or backfired on the old man, but God was good to keep his word and his son Isaac was born to him. God had promised that through Isaac, Abraham would become the father of a great nation that would eventually be a blessing to the entire world. So when the events of Genesis 22 come around they come as a shock to the reader. Some time later God tested Abraham. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you. Abraham had been faithful mostly to God for his entire life and Isaac was the promised child that Abraham waited twenty-five years for. Isaac was the one who would form a great nation that would produce a blessing for the entire world, so how is it now that God is asking Abraham to sacrifice all of this? Abraham is not only being asked to give up his son, but also his legacy, and all the promised gifts of God. Despite being given this incredibly difficult task, we see that Abraham complied: Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. We will worship and then we will come back to you. 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. We are bearing witness to a father about to slay his son with a knife and offer him as a burnt offering. This is a father who is willing to give the greatest gift God has ever given him back to the Lord as an act of total obedience. The pain Abraham must have been feeling in this moment must have been unimaginable, and fortunately the story does not end the way most people would have expected. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place The Lord Will Provide. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me. Abraham proved in this act that he held God in a higher position than anything on earth, and as a result he is remembered today by millions today as the father of their people. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. This young ruler was pretty full of himself having thought he had kept all the laws since he was a boy, but in the end he still had something that he was not willing to give up. What a fool, holding on to shiny coins when he had to opportunity to follow the Son of God and join in eternity, but before we are too quick to judge we must consider how we would respond if put in a similar situation. Are we holding on to stuff so much that we will be unwilling to part with it if God calls on us? Lesson 3: The Family Men In an often misunderstood story we see that Christ can, and will, sometimes call us to give up more than just our personal wealth and possessions. In Luke 9:57-62 Jesus makes it clear that even something like family should not stand in the way of you answering the calling God placed in your life. In this account two men are given the opportunity to become disciples of Christ, but before they commit the both claim they have family matters that need to be resolved first. The problem here is not a willingness to sacrifice, but a hesitation. Where as the disciples we know from scripture dropped everything and followed the Lord, these men hesitated. They wanted to follow the Lord, but they valued their family more, and when the time came they put their family first. In most cases putting family first is considered nobel, but when it hinders your willingness to further the Kingdom of God then you have made an idol out of your family. I have no doubts that as those three men lived to see their wealth or wonderful families gradually fade as all earthly things do they must have looked back on the day they had a chance to be a disciple of the Son of God and wondered what could have been. I am not saying that wealth, family, or worldly things are always bad, but I am saying that we need to remember never to put any of them before God. To say that this is a difficult task is to majorly understate just how impossible it is for us to live this out. We are selfish and worldly. You and I will fail at this, and thankfully God is merciful and delights in forgiveness. Let us never forget that it was God who gave you life and he create every wonderful and beautiful thing you have ever experienced. Best of all he willingly sent his beloved son to die so you would be spared the pain of death. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Remember what he first gave up for you. God gave of himself to suffer and die to take the place for you and your sins out of love. God has a great plan for you, but in order to get there you might have to be willing to give up somethings, but I promise you that following God will be infinitely better than whatever it is you are afraid to lose.

The problem here is not a willingness to sacrifice, but a hesitation. Indeed, sacrifice is love's very essence. No one ever social it better than C. Romans 16:5 Greet Ampliatus, whom I love in the Lord. For I am convinced that neither death or life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be sincere to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. We are being formed, shaped, and molded by our Creator and Savior to become Christ-like.