Move from Leisurely Accommodating to Sacrifice

This past Sunday I preached about the central aim of Jesus' life. The text was the passage where Rocky(Peter) tries to correct Jesus. Jesus is at the height of his popularity and begins talking sacrifice. That is when Rocky knows better than Jesus. You get the picture that Rocky pulls Jesus to the side like he is his manager. This sacrifice talk is not playing well. The opinion polls do not appreciate such talk!

I think most of us really do not know about sacrifice in our lives. Instead we are willing to leisurely accommodate God. After all, the faith does not call for us to endure too much pain--or does it? Leisurely accommodating God gives the perception of sacrifice without the reality. But in our world, perception is everything!

You see if we can get the world to THINK we are living a life of sacrifice, then we have it made. Never mind that the good Lord knows our spiritual fraud. Never mind that such an attitude like this is the height of spiritual shallowness. It is like the woman who donated an overcoat to the local clothes place. As she was giving it away though, she saw the elegant buttons on the coat. She came to the conclusion in her mind that someone who would receive a second hand coat like this would not feel comfortable wearing the coat with the elegant buttons, so she cut them off and kept them for herself.

Living sacrifices are difficult in our world. The problem is that living sacrifices keep crawling off the altar! A living sacrifice is where you are fully alive in your world. However, because of your faith stance, you have chosen less for yourself so that you can offer more to others. A life filled with living sacrifices focuses on others rather than our self.

Jesus' life was oriented around others. For others, he dealt with the crowds when he really wanted to be alone. For others, he prayed that health would return to their ailing bodies. For others, Jesus took the five loaves of bread and two fish and fed thousands. For others, Jesus die on the cross and rose again.

So what about sacrifice in your life? Are you willing to move from leisurely accommodating God to a purpose filled life that exemplifies a living sacrifice?

An older gentleman was near the end of his life. His son asked him what made the biggest difference in how he lived his life. What was it? The man thought for just a while and then answered, "the day that I discovered the meaning of Jesus' sacrifice for me and began to do the same for others. I grew up that day!"