Sacrifices Aren’t Always What We Think

What does the term “sacrifice” mean to you? Sacrifices come in varied sizes, large and small. We might feel led to give a dollar or two to a “homeless” person standing along the roadside with a sign asking for help. We might pause to help the proverbial little old lady across the street or take in a stray puppy that seems lost and starving.

 

Then there are accounts of people making great, noble sacrifices: A single mom working two or more jobs to pay the bills and provide food and clothing for her children. A father filling the roles of both dad and mom while his wife recovers from serious illness. Parents scrimping and saving so a son or daughter can get the college education that wasn’t available to them. A young man or woman surrendering a kidney for an ailing sibling.

 

In the work world I’ve heard of business owners choosing to forgo their own paychecks so employees can get paid. Staff members working late into the night to ensure important deadlines are met or projects completed. Teachers spending their own money to provide needed supplies for their classes. 

 

Obviously, some sacrifices are more costly than others. We’ve heard stories of servicemen and women making “the ultimate sacrifice,” surrendering their lives on battlefields to save their comrades. These selfless acts affirm Jesus Christ’s teaching that it’s “more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Somehow, when we give to others – especially when it’s sacrificial – we can feel rewarded for doing the right thing.

 

The greatest sacrifice of all, many of us would agree, is what Jesus Christ did on our behalf. Romans 5:8 reminds us that, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In 2 Corinthians 5:21 we read a similar affirmation: “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” 

 

I don’t know about you, but the sacrifice He willingly made to reconcile broken men, women and children to the Father still challenges my full comprehension.

 

Sacrifice is a recurring theme in the Bible. The Old Testament reveals an elaborate system of sacrifices God prescribed for the people of Israel – bulls, sheep, goats and grain – all intended to enhance their worship of the Lord and offer symbolic atonement for sins. Many of these sacrifices served as harbingers of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice. But we find a somewhat different perspective on sacrifices in Psalm 50 that fits the season of thanksgiving and celebration we’re now entering. 

 

Speaking to the Israelites, the Lord said, “I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are ever before Me. I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is Mine and the cattle on a thousand hills….” In other words, their sacrifices weren’t giving anything to God that He didn’t already own.

 

Then the passage makes a shift , telling about a very different form of sacrifice, one the Lord says He prefers: “Sacrifice thank offerings to God; fulfill your vows to the Most High…. He who sacrifices thank offerings honors Me and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:7-14,23).

 

We find a similar perspective in Psalm 51:17, which declares, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” This isn’t to say the Lord doesn’t appreciate gifts we offer of our time, our talents and our treasures, especially those that require some level of sacrifice. But what He wants most is our hearts – sincere hearts of gratitude, reverence and worship.

 

Over the next weeks we’ll be bombarded with requests from ministries and charitable organizations for special year-end gifts to support and sustain their work, as well as to express our thankfulness to the Lord for what He is doing. Those are important and should be prayerfully and carefully considered. But as the passages above inform us, the greatest gift we can offer – the greatest sacrifice – is our unwavering, sincere thankfulness for all He has done and all that He is doing.

When We Need Someone to Clean Up Our Mess

There’s been a story circulating online, apparently true, about an older woman in a large retail store who stumbled and fell into a product display. The resulting crash could be heard throughout the store. Folks ran toward the noise to see what had happened. 

The embarrassed individual wasn’t hurt, but she was scrambling to clean up the mess. Some of the items on display had been broken or damaged, and the woman was probably trying to calculate how much it would cost for her to make amends.

 

Quickly arriving on the scene, the store manager immediately assured the customer that her worst fears were unwarranted. “Ma’am, we’ll clean this up. We carry insurance to cover things like this.”

 

Can you imagine the woman’s relief upon hearing this? She might still have been red-faced for being involved in such a mishap, but someone else was prepared to pay the price for what she had done. It might have felt like getting the “Get Out of Jail Free” card during a game of Monopoly, except this was a real-life situation. Who knows? She might have been on a fixed income with no means to pay for the damage.

 

What an apt metaphor for what Jesus Christ has done for us. As someone has said, “He died a death He did not deserve to pay a debt He did not owe – to satisfy the debt we could not pay.” Jesus willingly died in our place.

 

This debt is not only measured in dollars and cents; it’s a spiritual debt, the result of breaking every one of God’s laws in thought, word or deed – probably many times over. It would be impossible for us to pay this debt ourselves because the Lord has only one standard – absolute perfection. Anything less than this is unacceptable for an all-righteous God.

 

When confronted with this reality, one Old Testament prophet had the only possible response: “‘Woe to me!’” I cried. “‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty’” (Isaiah 6:5). This is what happens when imperfect humanity encounters perfect deity.

 

As I’ve cited before, the New Testament epistle of Romans has much to say about this dilemma. It declares, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one seeks God…there is no one who does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12). A bit later we read, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

 

These are hard words to hear. We like to think of ourselves as pretty good folks. “I’m a good person,” we might reason. “Certainly, I’m better than the other guy.” But to be blunt, that’s like comparing cow manure with horse manure. You wouldn’t want either on your living room floor. And yet we expect the holy God to overlook us in all of our unholiness. 

 

Early in his book, the prophet Isaiah wrote of his unworthiness; by the end of the book, he hadn’t changed his mind. He wrote, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Sounds like bad news for modern man, as well as ancient man.

 

But just as the lady who crashed into the store display and in utter disbelief heard words like, “No problem” or “No worries, I’ve got this,” the Bible assures us we can hear the God of the universe and all eternity express similar words, only with infinitely greater importance.

 

Romans 5:8 assures us, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And Romans 6:23 asserts, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” 

 

There might be some of us who fret, “But how could God ever forgive what I’ve done?” But think about it: How many sins had you committed when Christ died for you as a sinner? Actually, none because you hadn’t been born yet. He graciously and mercifully paid our bill long before we started running up the tab.

 

When Jesus spoke His last words on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30), the Greek word He painfully uttered was “tetelestai.” Meaning “paid in full,” it was a perfect tense word describing a past completed act having a present effect. To put it into jargon of today, Christ paid it forward.

 

The hapless woman must have felt an incredible surge of gratitude upon learning she wouldn’t be held responsible for the cost of the damage she caused. How much more should we feel overwhelmed with gratitude to know Jesus has already paid the price for our selfish, prideful and even rebellious thoughts, actions and words? 

 

Words of the song “My Tribute,” by Andrae Crouch, sum it up: 

“How can I say thanks
For all the things You've done for me?
Things so undeserved
Yet You gave to prove Your love to me
The voices of a million angels
Could not express my gratitude
All that I am
And ever hope to be
I owe it all to Thee.”