Sacrifice -- Why?

#askapastor

• 13th Sunday After Pentecost

with Philippians 2:1-11

www.FirstChurchBville.com   @FirstUMCBville   @kerrfunk

• A stranger set his book on an adjacent table at Panera and asked my companion if he’d watch his stuff while he filled his drink. “I’ll guard it with his life,” joked my companion as he pointed to another diner.

Sacrifice is related to value.

• Today’s Ask-A-Pastor question is simply “Sacrifice – why?”

• A few sacrifices from scriptures:
- Cain and Abel sacrifice (Gen 4:3-4. Cain offers fruit of the soil, Abel offers the fatportions of some firstborns from his flock).
Why sacrifice? Praise, thanksgiving, worship.

- After the flood, (Gen 8:20-21) Noah offered burnt offering animal sacrifices (God had instructed him to bring more than two of those animals!) and God was "pleased by the aroma." God responds with the covenant of the rainbow.
Also from Genesis 8, There is life in the blood (see also Ex 20:24) and God values life, and will demand an accounting for life.

- Job 1:5 sacrifices to cover for his childrens’ possible sins.
Why sacrifice? Intercession, forgiveness.

- Of course, the sacrifice of the Passover (Exodus 12) in which the faithful are saved from death because of their obedience and because of the blood of the lamb.

- You can read much about sacrifice in Leviticus.

A sacrifice system offered way to atone for sin, to clean & commit self, and to worship God / have fellowship with God.

• Consider the direction of sacrifice: outward. Away from self.
Consider root of sinfulness: inward. Me. Self-reliance, self-edification, self-glory.

Sacrifice is a prescribed treatment to our propensity to pride.
Also prevention!

Why sacrifice? It’s the pill to cure our ill! Direction.

• Before a faithful one was admitted to heaven, she asked to view hell. She saw tables heaped with good food, but the occupants were unable to eat because the only utensils were three feet long, and no one could feed themselves.
Then she was surprised in heaven to see tables heaped with good food, and three-foot-long utensils. The difference was that in heaven, the occupants were feeding each other.

• I suspect, though, that the question “Sacrifice – why?”
has to do with Jesus’ violent death on the cross.

Continuing the direction idea (sacrifice is us acting outwardly, giving something of our best to God in praise thanksgiving love) there’s an aspect of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ which is GOD GIVING GOD’S BEST TO HUMANKIND saying I desire your fellowship & company.

Still, violent.
Why does all-powerful God have to have a crucifixion to satisfy some blood debt?
Why can’t God just say Okay, I forgive you, I don’t need blood payment.

• When we sin, when we elevate ourselves over God, we choose separation from God. What’s the result of separation from God? We're like fish out of water. Separation from God is bad because we’re made by God for God & just as a fish made for water struggles out of water so we struggle away from God.

When we sin, it’s like we’re diving off a platform into rocky water or an empty pool. Away from God and into suffering.

And here’s the thing: Jesus knows we ultimately can’t bear separation from God so he dives into our situation to bear it for us, to absorb it, to remove the separation and the stain and bring us back into relationship with God.

It’s not that blood is required as payment for sin, it’s that death is the result of our choice to remove ourselves from God,
and Jesus jumps in and bears the consequence of our choice.

• The hope of Jesus is that we would be oriented towards God, & seek to bring others into alignment as well. & if we would bring others into alignment, what’s our direction? Away from self. 

Live sacrificially.

• Hymn 398 Jesus Calls Us O’er the Tumult

Philippians 2:1-11        (Common English Bible)

2 Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort in love, any sharing in the Spirit, any sympathy, 2 complete my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, being united, and agreeing with each other. 3 Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility think of others as better than yourselves. 4 Instead of each person watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others. 5 Adopt the attitude that was in Christ Jesus:

6 Though he was in the form of God,
        he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit.
7 But he emptied himself
        by taking the form of a slave
        and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human,
8         he humbled himself
              by becoming obedient to the point of death,
          even death on a cross.
9 Therefore, God highly honored him
        and gave him a name above all names,
10     so that at the name of Jesus everyone
        in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow
11         and every tongue confess that
            Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. X