After the Chicago Bear’s tragic, devastating, untimely loss to the Eagles—I started rooting for Tom Brady and the Patriots. Now hear me out! I know most of you hate Tom Brady, but for a guy who is 41 years old, some part of you has to admit he is a freak of nature. He has taken his team to the Superbowl nine times and won five championships. Maybe he’ll run out of fingers for rings. He has plans to keep playing! As a forty something year old man myself, I’m for anyone who can outperform all these young guys.
As much as I might admire Tom Brady, I have no desire to live a football-centric life. For most people, their content eating 80% healthy and 20% unhealthy. Not Tom. Its 80% alkaline foods, and 20% acidic. He published a book about his diet. No coffee. No caffeine. No sugar. No flour. No salt. No alcohol. No sausage/bacon. No doughnuts. Little/no fruit. No dairy. Vegetable based ice-cream. 2 ½ gallons of water a day. Quirky workouts. Special pajamas. Tom, you lost me at no coffee! But good for you!
Isn’t it true? We want the best for our lives, for our world, but we want it without sacrifice? We want to be strong, but without exercise. We want to be healthy, “to achieve a lifetime of sustained peak performance” but without changing our diet. We want to be brilliant, but without study. We want to be successful, but without repeated practice or repeated failures or feeling pain. We want to change the world but without getting off the couch, or computer, or phone.
This is also true in a spiritual sense. We want to enjoy every spiritual blessing in Christ, but without the sacrifice. Yes Lord. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven… um, so long as it doesn’t cost me anything! Yes Lord, I want to know your will and please you in every way… but please don’t make me have to read the Bible, or use S.O.A.P., or go to Church, or some Bible class or small group or worship. Yes Lord, renovate my character. Yes Lord, shower me with grace and mercy. Just don’t make me deny myself, or go the extra mile, or forgive as I want to be forgiven. God save the lost masses! Send forth workers into your harvest field. Just don’t make me go, please, could it be someone else?
This morning I want to talk about talk about how the Kingdom Life is a life of a sacrifice? Turn to someone and repeat that. The Kingdom Life is a Life of Sacrifice. The Kingdom of God evolves around three big ideas.
First, WE ARE SAVED BY SACRIFICE. One of the most extraordinary truths we learn about God in Scripture, is he did not consider himself exempt from sacrifice. In order to save his people from their sins, God had to send forth His One and Only Son. And it’s not like Jesus came to live some comfortable, privileged life.
For example, Jesus found himself tempted in every way. In regard to hunger (turn these stones into bread), in regard to prestige (throw yourself from the temple and make yourself famous), in regard to power (bow down and sell your soul to the devil and gain the world). Yet Jesus was without sin. He stayed true to his character.
People swarmed around Jesus. He was continually confronted with the full weight of people’s needs everywhere he went. Yet Matthew 8:17 says, “He Himself took our weaknesses and carried our diseases.” He didn’t turn away, exhausted.
Jesus by virtue of his character found himself at odds with sinful mankind… insulted, persecuted, falsely accused because of righteousness. For example, he found himself alienated from his own family… In Matthew 12:47, Jesus is told his momma is looking for him. His family had come to take charge of him. But in Matthew 12:48, Jesus had to draw a line and say, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” It’s hard enough to serve God, but it’s even harder if no one in family supports you.
Jesus was also disrespected in his hometown… Matthew 13:55, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother called Mary, and his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, Judas? And his sisters aren’t they all with us? Where does he get all this stuff? And they were offended by Jesus.” To which Jesus replies, Matthew 13:57: “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his household.” {If I may share an old movie quote, “it's not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others.”}
People would romanticize following Jesus. Jesus would set them straight. Matthew 8:20, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” Talk about sacrifice, Jesus was homeless!
Maybe you remember Jesus’ altercation with Peter? Matthew 16:19 Jesus tells his disciples, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will have been loosed in heaven.” Pretty amazing right? But in Matthew 16:21-23 were told: “From then on Jesus began to point out to his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day. [NECESSARY, not optional, NECESSARY!!!!!] Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, “Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to you!” To which Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me because you’re not thinking about God’s concerns but human concerns.”
So often our way of thinking bypasses sacrifice; but God’s way of thinking embraces sacrifice, even to the point of death, even death on a cross. Sacrifice underpins all of Christian thinking/living. The Kingdom of God isn’t an escape from sacrifice, it’s a full embrace of sacrifice. Sacrifice is the means by which God secured the salvation of all men. Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
For the Christian Christ’s sacrifice is not just a guiding ethic, it’s our super-ethic, the ethic above all ethics. In Matthew 16:24-25 Jesus says, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.” Does our idea of Kingdom embrace sacrifice?
Second, WE ARE SHAPED BY SACRIFICE. Not only are we saved by sacrifice, we are sanctified/transformed, by sacrifice. A sacrifice-optional, obedience-optional Kingdom does not exist. It’s one thing to turn on the Superbowl and admire Tom Brady, but if you want to become Tom Brady, you have to live a football-centric life, by Tom’s book! It’s one thing to tune into Jesus and admire his life, but it we want to become like Jesus, we have to live a Kingdom-centric life of sacrifice by the Word of God.
Just what does it mean to live a life of sacrifice? Perhaps you remember those verses from last week in Matthew 13:44-46: “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure, buried in a field, that a man found and reburied. Then in his joy he goes and sells everything he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. When he found one priceless pearl, he went and sold everything he had and bought it.” The Kingdom of God forces some hard choices in our life. The only way to gain the Kingdom is by first losing. How’s this for a definition of sacrifice: Sacrifice is letting go of something lesser for something greater.
How was Jesus able to resist temptation? Why not turn stone into bread? Why not jump off the temple? Why not bow down and sell your soul to the devil? It’s because the Kingdom is about wanting something more than just this world.
What about ethics? There is no higher ethical teaching found in all the world than what’s contained in Matthew 5-6-7. Why do good works? Why let your light shine? Why be like salt? In the negative… Why not murder? Why not be angry and sin? Why not insult people’s intelligence? Why not sue people for everything they’ve got? Why settle matters quickly instead of letting them brew day/night? Why not fan the embers of lust into a raging forest fire? Why turn your eyes from pornography or hands from unwholesome behavior? Why not commit sexual sin like adultery? Why not divorce your wife and turn your back on your family? Why bother telling the truth, especially if it will cost you in the short term? Why not take an eye or eye, or tooth for tooth? Why give to a person in need? Why go the extra mile when wronged? Why love your enemies? Why should we all be a bunch of religious hypocrites? Why give? Why pray? Why fast? Why trust God with our daily needs? Why do unto others as we’d have them do unto us?
We don’t become like Jesus. We don’t get sanctified. We don’t get transformed. Our character doesn’t get renovated without the sacrifice of obedience. We’re shaped by sacrifices we make, as well as the sacrifices we refuse to make.
The Kingdom is a sacrifice-centric, obedience-centric life. Again, what did Jesus say in Matthew 16:24-25? “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it.” There is no sacrifice-optional sanctification. There is no sacrifice-optional obedience. There is no sacrifice-optional Kingdom of God. So, we’ve outlined two big ideas: We’re saved by sacrifice (Christ’s sacrifice), were also shaped by sacrifice.
Third, WE SAVE LIVES BY SACRIFICE. We can never save lives in the ultimate sense. We can only be saved by virtue of Christ’s perfect sacrifice. However, there is a sense in which our sacrifices plural (as God’s people) are necessary to point people to one all-important singular sacrifice of Jesus. We shouldn’t suppose that our lives will matter much for God’s Kingdom (or much of anything) without sacrifice.
If our lives aren’t filled with good deeds, do we suppose many will have reason to praise our Father who is in heaven? If we don’t use our talents, do we suppose two will ever become 4? Or 5 become 10 or 11? Or that we’ll produce 100, 50, 30x what sown? If we don’t make the most of our time/ energy, do we suppose we’ll bear much fruit for God? If we don’t sacrifice our hungers, our ambitions, our insatiable appetites for attention… will Christ ever be made famous by our lives? If we don’t sacrifice our traditions/preferences, will people see God? If we don’t go, if don’t ever give sacrificially, if we never tithe, will the gospel circle the globe? If the demands of our families, your husband, your wife, your kids trump everything of value in God’s Kingdom. If our fleshly desires trump any consideration of living a life of integrity…
Show me how, in God’s Kingdom, anything good comes to your life, let alone the lives of others, without sacrifice? The Kingdom Life is a Life of Sacrifice. Though it’s true that our sacrifice will never upstage Christ’s supreme sacrifice, neither should we diminish God’s call on our life to self-denial, sacrifice. God isn’t so big to consider Himself exempt from sacrifice; But neither is your life is so small that God would consider you exempt from sacrifice. God uses even the smallest things to make the biggest of statements. Our sacrifice is our statement about what is of supreme value/importance in your life. So what kind of statement are you making?
Colossians 1:24-29, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for his body, that is, the church. 25 I have become its servant, according to God’s commission that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 God wanted to make known among the Gentiles the glorious wealth of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. 28 We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. 29 I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.”