Wrestling with God’s Sacrifice

Well, we’re going to continue our series this morning on wrestling with God. Maybe you remember the premise of this series is based in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 25: “And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.” And so, as Christians, we are wrestling for that imperishable crown that we all hope to receive one day, but we’ve got to go through this life to get it, and we’ve got to wrestle with many different things as we pass through life. I suppose there’s a lot that we could talk about along this topic, but this morning we’re going to be thinking about wrestling with God’s sacrifice.

Sacrifice is an area that many of us don’t think very much about. I don’t know, but I know that there are times in our lives when we have to make sacrifices. There have been periods in history when people have had to make more sacrifices than others, but there is this notion of putting off what we want in the immediate present until some other time so that we can take care of whatever specific needs we have in the moment. And sacrifice is something that the Bible deals with on a regular basis.

As we think about the concept of sacrifice, a story that comes to my mind is the old story of the barnyard animals. You may say, “Well, what about the barnyard animals?” Well, the barnyard animals got together one day and decided they wanted to honor the farmer. And so, as they were going around, they said, “Well, let’s make a nice breakfast for the farmer, and that way we can honor him.” Of course, the chicken said, “Well, I’ll lay some eggs, and he can have some eggs for breakfast.” Then one of the other barnyard animals said, “Well, I’ll go dig up some potatoes so he can have some hash browns with his breakfast.” Another one said, “Well, I’ll go grab some corn so he can have some grits with his breakfast,” because everybody knows that grits are the best thing about breakfast, right? Just kidding. And then they finally looked over to the pig and said, “Well, wouldn’t it be nice if he could have some ham with his breakfast?” And the pig said, “Now wait a minute. What y’all have been talking about so far have been contributions, but what you’re asking of me is a sacrifice.”

That’s kind of how I think about it. I always like that story to introduce the topic of sacrifice, because sacrifice is something more than just something we have lying around that we can grab and give, and it’s easy for us. A sacrifice requires something that may hurt, something that’s going to be a challenge for us to do. And when we think about God’s sacrifice, God has made sacrifices for us, and that’s what we want to focus on this morning: God’s sacrifices, in the hope that each one of us can reflect on how we might be able to make sacrifices in our lives.

We’re going to start with Genesis chapter 22 and verse 2. You may remember this very famous story in the Bible of God coming to Abraham and saying to him, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.” The Bible doesn’t say very much about Abraham’s mental state, but you can imagine that this was a difficult thing for him to do. The Bible simply says that Abraham gets up the next morning, gets everything together, and says to Isaac, “Let’s go. We’re going to go to Moriah, and we’re going to make a sacrifice to God.” And he makes that trip. Of course, we know the story: as he was about to make the sacrifice, the angel said to Abraham, “Stop, don’t do it.” And then there was a ram there, and so the ram was provided in the place of Isaac as a sacrifice.

But why would God ask this of Abraham? One of the reasons I think God wants us to make sacrifices is that He doesn’t want us to love anything in this world more than we love Him, even the things that are the most precious to us. God wants us to love Him more. Because the truth of the matter is this: one day we’re going to have to let everything go. Everything that is most precious to us, everything that we have loved over the years, is going to be something we have to let go, and the only One who’s going to be left for us to cling to at that point will be God. But if we haven’t let those things go, then how will we be able to cling to God? And so God is concerned about sacrifice. He wants us to think about sacrifice, and He’s set the example for us in making sacrifices. So let’s think about how God has sacrificed, in the hope of helping us to think about making sacrifices within our own lives.

First of all, God has sacrificed His system. When I say “system,” I mean everything that God has created, everything that He has made. He’s made it, and He’s sacrificed it to us. He’s given it to us. Think about the world and everything that’s in it, and think about passages such as Psalm 24 and verse 1: “The earth is the Lord’s, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein.” And then Job 41 and verse 11, where God says to Job, “Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine.”

God made everything. Put yourself in God’s shoes for a minute, if you will. Think about something precious that you have created, something precious that you’ve made, and then ask yourself: could you freely give that to someone else and let them do with it what they will? That can be a hard decision to make. Sometimes we can do that, and there are some generous people in the world who do that. But these things that we create, the things we make that are precious to us, we have to think about sacrificing them for someone else. And God has done that. He’s made everything, and He’s made it for us.

We think about Genesis 1, verses 28 through 29, which says, “Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’ And God said, ‘See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food.'” And so God made all these wonderful things, and He gave them to mankind. He gave them so that they could be a benefit to us.

Think about Isaiah 45 and verse 18: “For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens, who is God, who formed the earth and made it, who has established it, who did not create it in vain, who formed it to be inhabited: ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other.'” He formed it to be inhabited, which means He intended to give it to someone else so that someone else might benefit from it. So God sacrifices for us. He sacrifices His system.

And He did this knowing that man was going to use what He gave him for sinful purposes. He was going to corrupt the very thing God gave. We look in Genesis 3, verses 17 through 19, and we see there the ground that God had cursed because of man’s sin: “Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.” And so man’s sin corrupted what God made. It corrupted what God created. It perverted that sacrifice He made for mankind, and that sin, that corruption, that perversion has come forward into our time as well. Romans chapter 5 and verse 12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” This earth was a gift that God gave us. This was a sacrifice He made for us, and yet we used it in a way that dishonored Him, speaking of mankind in general.

But people also belong to God. Think about God giving us our lives, giving us the bodies that we have, giving us the freedom that we have. God has established His control, but He gives us the ability to choose. He wants us to choose what is right, but He knows that there are some who are not going to do it. In Deuteronomy 30, verses 15 through 19, He says, “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil… therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.”

I suppose God could have said, “These humans that I made, I don’t want them to corrupt this world. I don’t want them to do evil. I’ll just take control of them. I’ll make them My robots, and I will program them to do what I tell them to do, and they can’t do anything other than that.” But then there wouldn’t be the opportunity for us to freely love God in return for what He has done for us. And so God gives us choice. He gives us freedom, knowing we’re going to abuse it, knowing we’re going to use it in ways that won’t honor Him. Yet He has sacrificed that ability to control us so that we might freely love Him in return.

So the choice is open to us. That freedom is there for us. In Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14, Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” God has sacrificed His system and given us a choice on what to do with it, how to manage it, and how to live within it, and that’s up to us.

But because of that choice, one day God will destroy everything that He made, everything He created, all the good things we see around us. Because sin came into the world, one day He’s going to have to bring it to an end. Second Peter 3 and verse 10 says, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.” And so God will ultimately sacrifice everything, and everything will be done away with. And then one day we’ll all stand before Him in judgment, and we’ll be judged based upon what we’ve done in the body, whether good or evil. On that day we’ll be standing before that great white throne, “from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them.” And so one day it’s just going to be between us and God. No one else is going to be in our place. No one else is going to live for us. No one else is going to make the choices for us. It’s up to us to do what is right with the sacrifice God has made for us in this world, the sacrifice of His system.

Secondly, God has sacrificed His station. God is the Creator, and we see that very clearly in Scripture. Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Jeremiah 10 and verse 12 says, “He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens at His discretion.” And so God is the superior One. He’s above all other things. But what’s interesting is that God sacrifices His station to come down to our level and help us in a lot of ways.

So when we think about wrestling with God’s sacrifice, not only do we have to wrestle with the idea that God sacrifices His system, that He gives us this world and everything in it, and that because of sin one day this perfect creation He made is going to have to be destroyed, but God also sacrifices His station. He comes down to our level, the Creator, the One who made the world. It’s not beneath Him to come down to our level and work with us and help us, and He sacrifices to do that.

In Psalm 113, verses 4 through 9, it says the Lord “humbles Himself to behold the things that are in the heavens and in the earth. He raises the poor out of the dust… He grants the barren woman a home, like a joyful mother of children.” So the Lord humbles Himself. He comes down and sees very specific things that need to be addressed, and then He works on those things. It’s not beneath Him to do that. He sacrifices His station. He could have remained above it all, I suppose, and said, “Well, y’all just figure it out for yourselves.” But no, He didn’t do that. He decided to get personally involved, to come down and be part of His creation, and that’s a sacrifice on His part.

Those of us who are parents know what kind of sacrifice that is, right? Because when our children struggle with things, what do we do? We get involved in their lives. I’m sure sometimes we sit back and think, “Man, I sure have much better things to do than to sit here and do first-grade math problems.” But we make that sacrifice to help our children. We make that sacrifice because we love them and we care about them. We sacrifice our station for our children, and God does the same thing. He sacrifices His station for us. He lowers Himself so that we can live with Him.

Think about what Jesus did in Philippians 2, verses 5 through 7: “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” Here was Jesus in the form of God, and yet He took on the likeness of men. He took on mankind’s shroud, mankind’s cloak, and He became a man. He humbled Himself. He became a servant, and He even went to the cross for us, which we’ll talk about in just a moment. God made that sacrifice. He sacrificed His station to come down and be with us and live with us.

God lowers Himself so that we can live with Him. Think about Psalm 34 and verse 18: “The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” It’s that broken heart, that contrite spirit, that brings God to us. It attracts Him to us, because He recognizes that when we are like that, we are like Him in a lot of ways. Why? Because God sacrifices. In Isaiah 57 and verse 15 we read, “For thus says the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.'”

Where does God dwell? You think, “Well, God dwells in heaven. He’s up there in majesty and splendor.” Yes, He is, but look at what He says: “I dwell with those who have a contrite and humble spirit.” That’s the one who’s most like Him. Why? Because God sacrifices. God understands what we need, and He gives us those things freely, willingly, lovingly. Why does God do this? He values us. He loves us. And He becomes our example in sacrifice when we need to sacrifice on behalf of others.

And then finally, perhaps the greatest example of sacrifice in the Bible: God has sacrificed His Son. Jesus came to the earth specifically to be God’s sacrifice for the sins of mankind. In Hebrews chapter 10, verses 5 through 7, we read, “Therefore, when He came into the world…” That’s talking about Jesus coming into the world. “He said: ‘Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You had no pleasure. Then I said, “Behold, I have come — in the volume of the book it is written of Me — to do Your will, O God.”‘”

And so God looked upon all those old sacrifices, the bulls and goats and rams and doves and grain and other things that were sacrificed under the old law, and He said, “You know what? Those don’t really cut it. We need a better sacrifice.” And He said, “My Son will be that sacrifice.” “A body You have prepared for Me,” the body of Jesus. We remember that body when we take the Lord’s Supper every Sunday. Jesus came to be a sacrifice. Hebrews chapter 7, verses 26 and 27, says, “For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens; who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people’s, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.” That’s the sacrifice Jesus made: He offered up Himself. And that’s the sacrifice God makes for us, the sacrifice of His Son.

Jesus sacrificed His place in heaven. He came down to the earth. “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (John 3:13). He came down from heaven to live here as a man. He sacrificed that place as the Son of God. And in Philippians 2:5-7, which we saw earlier, we are to think about the sacrifice Jesus made. He sacrificed His power so that He could be born as a helpless baby.

Think about that. After being an adult, would you go back to being a helpless baby? I think about that sometimes, and I don’t think I could do that. I don’t think I’d want to do that. You say, “Well, you’d get to be young again.” Well, yes, but then I’d have to live through all those things over again. But think about what God sacrificed, what Christ sacrificed, what Jesus sacrificed for us. He gave up all the power He had. He gave up all the authority He had. He came to this earth as an infant child so that He could save His people from their sins. We read in Matthew 1:21 and Luke 2:7 that Mary “will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus,” and “she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths.” The Creator of the universe, the God of heaven, the One who is in control of all things, humbled Himself, sacrificed all that He had, and came into the body of a helpless baby. What a tremendous sacrifice that was on His part. He left heaven, He came to this earth, He sacrificed all of His power and glory and might, and He entered the body of a helpless baby.

And we see that as He continued to live, He continued to make these sacrifices. He even sacrificed a normal human life. Most of us have a normal human life, I would say, and in that normal human life we go along and enjoy a lot of things every day. But Jesus sacrificed a lot of those normal human things for us. Think about His work in the temple when He was 12 years old. He was already eager to be about His Father’s business (Luke chapter 2 and verse 49). And in John chapter 4 and verse 34, they were trying to get Jesus to eat something, and He said, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” So Jesus sacrificed all of these normal human things that we experience, that we often take for granted, so that He could do the work that He did.

And then finally, Jesus sacrificed His own body, His own life, when He gave it up on the cross for our sins. Romans chapter 5 and verse 8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” First John 2 and verse 2 says, “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” A propitiation is a sacrifice, a satisfactory sacrifice that Christ offered to God for us.

And so God makes sacrifices. As we think about God’s sacrifices, let’s remember that God sacrifices all the time. What do we then do in return for His sacrifice for us? God sacrificed His system, He sacrificed His station, and He sacrificed His Son. What do we learn from God’s sacrifices? Well, number one, we learn that people are the most important thing to God, because we see what God was willing to sacrifice for them. We learn that material things are not to be valued above other people. We learn that we must imitate God in valuing people more than things. And we ask the question: will we be willing to make the necessary sacrifices in our lives so that we can honor God, do God’s will, and advance the kingdom of God within our lives? God certainly was willing to sacrifice for us. Can we be willing to sacrifice something for Him?

God wants us to be that living sacrifice every day. Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” Does God know how to be a living sacrifice? He certainly does. He sacrificed so much for us. What will we in turn sacrifice for Him?

How can we become that living sacrifice? We’ve got to hear His word and believe it, repent of our sins, confess Jesus as Lord, and be baptized. That’s when we come into the likeness of the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Christ. That sacrifice Christ made for us, we imitate in the waters of baptism. And when we’re raised to walk in that new life, God says you become a living sacrifice. That’s what we are, and that’s what we continue to be. Will we then live in a way that honors God’s sacrifices? We want to do that. We want to be faithful to Him, and we want to wrestle with the sacrifice of God.

Do you need to wrestle with that sacrifice this morning? If you do, then we invite you to come forward while together we stand and while we sing.

End of transcript. Thank you for reading along!