June 8, 2008

Lesson: Mark 12. 32-33

Sermon Title: Sacrificial Love

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INTRODUCTION:

The Congregation Replied (1)

Down in the south, there are many churches known as "answer back" churches. When the preacher says something, the congregation naturally replies.

One Sunday, a preacher was speaking on what it would take for the church to become better. He said "If this church is to become better, it must take up it's bed, and walk."

The congregation said "Let it walk, Preacher, let it walk."

Encouraged by their response, he went further. "If this church is going to become better, it will have to throw aside it's hindrances and run!"

The congregation replied, "Let it run, preacher, let it run!"

Now really into his message, he spoke stronger. "If this church really wants to become great, it will have to take up it's wings and fly!"

"Let it fly, Preacher, let it fly!" the congregation shouts.

The Preacher gets louder. "If this church is going to fly, it will cost money!"

The congregation replied. "Let it walk, Preacher, let it walk."

  1. They did not want to sacrifice, so they sacrificed.

    1. The concept of sacrifice may be used in two different ways.

      1. Positively = It is what is done for the benefit of others.

      2. Negatively = It is what you give up in order to get along with others.

        1. What do you do to be liked?

        2. What do you do to be appreciated?

    2. Where does the congregation in the illustration find itself?

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MAIN BODY

  1. Jesus was intimately acquainted with the whole sacrificial system under the Old Covenant.

    1. There were different kinds of sacrifices.

      1. Burnt offering wholly consumed by fire. Leviticus 1:1-17; 1 Kings 18:38

      2. Sin offering for sins of ignorance. Leviticus 4:1-35

      3. Trespass offering for intentional sins. Leviticus 6:1-7; Leviticus 7:1-7

      4. Peace offering. Leviticus 3:1-17

    2. Sacrifices were offered.

      1. Daily. Exodus 29:38-39; Numbers 28:3-4

      2. Weekly. Numbers 28:9-10

      3. Monthly. Numbers 28:11

      4. Yearly. Leviticus 16:3; 1 Samuel 1:3, 21; 1 Samuel 20:6

      5. At all the feasts. Numbers 10:10

      6. For the whole nation. Leviticus 16:15-30; 1 Chron. 29:21

      7. For individuals. Leviticus 1:2; Leviticus 17:8

    3. He was not surprised by the response of the scribe.

      1. 32..."You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that 'he is one, and besides him there is no other'; 33and 'to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,' and 'to love one's neighbor as oneself,'

      2. ...is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." (Mark 12:32-33, NRSVA).

    4. We do not offer the same sacrifices.

      1. Jesus has died once, and for all time, as a sacrifice for sin.

      2. We claim his sacrifice.

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  1. In this I am not so much concerned with what we sacrifice for the good of others, than I am in what we sacrifice to get along with others.

    1. Perhaps in examining the negative, we can accentuate the positive.

    2. What are some of the important aspects of our lives that we are prone to sacrifice?

  2. We are prone to sacrifice inspiration.

    1. It is easier to conform that it is to be different.

    2. We simply are adaptive in conforming.

      1. The temptation to adopt the ways of others is a constant one.

      2. The novel by Sloan ,,Wilson called The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is the story of Tom. a rising young business executive.

      3. Tom, like "a half million other guys in gray flannel suits," struggled to get ahead without violating his integrity.

      4. The temptation was very strong to say what the boss wanted him to say rather than to be honest and speak the truth.

      5. Tom put the problem very neatly: "How smoothly one becomes, not a cheat, exactly, not really a liar, just a man who'll say anything for pay." *

    3. Then people can be honest with each other, things do go better.

      1. Carl Rogers, one of the best·known workers in the counseling world, testifies to the importance of honesty and of genuineness in counseling relationships.

      2. "The most important ingredient," he writes, " ... is that I should be real."

        1. To be real, for him, means to be genuine, the opposite of being phony.

        2. He goes on to describe how being real helps:

In my relationship with people I have found that it does not help,. in the long run, to act as though I were something that I am not. It does not help to act calm and pleasant when actually I, am angry and critical. It does not help to act as though I know the answers when I do not. It does not help to act as though I were a loving person if actually, at the moment, I am hostile. It does not help for me to act as though I were full of assurance, if actually I am frightened and unsure.*

    1. Prodded by his wife, Tom, the Man In the Gray Flannel Suit, decides to speak the truth and did so even though he realized he risked his job.

      1. Later he talked it over with his wife:

"I needed a great deal of assistance in becoming an honest man. If you hadn't persuaded me to play it straight with Ralph [the boss], I would be thinking differently now. By a curious coincidence, Ralph and a good deal of the rest of the world have seemed honest to me ever since I became honest with myself.

      1. ... I'm sure things are going to be better. I've become almost an optimist."*

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  1. We are prone to sacrifice initiative.

    1. In his fine book, The Physical Side of Being Spiritual, Peter Gillquist writes of the two errors into which we fall regarding our work. (2)

    2. They are equal and opposite.

      1. The first is what he calls Tube Theology. This is the notion that humans are merely conduits through which God wants to do his work. The goal of this theology is to let go of our own initiative and will so that the Holy Spirit can take us over completely. We no longer live and work for God, but he lives and works through us. This is the passive error about work.

      2. The other error is its opposite: Bootstrap Theology. It says, God has given you everything you need to do what he wants you to do, so just get out there and do it. This is the active error.

    3. The biblical position is what Gillquist calls Synergy.

      1. The word synergy is derived from two Greek words, syn, the same as, or together with, and ergos, which means work or energy.

      2. This is the view of work espoused by the apostle Paul when he described himself and his colleagues as God's fellow workers (1 Corinthians 3:9, NIV).

        1. God has not called us to be tubes, but sons and daughters.

        2. Nor did he mean for us to be self-made men.

        3. As one person said: self-made men only demonstrate the horror of unskilled labor.

      3. God has called us to be co-workers.

    4. It is when freedom is combined with responsible commitment to meaningful goals that genuine creativity emerges.

      1. The struggle to keep growing toward significant objectives without giving in to the tendency to settle back into familiar ruts is a problem for most of us.

      2. It takes constant effort to grow in new and untried ways...

      3. In A. J. Cronin's novel The Citadel, the young wife cries out passionately to her disillusioned husband, who as a young doctor has given up his early idealism in order to make money:

"Don't make a joke of it, darling. You usen't to talk that way. , Oh! Don't you see, don't you see, you're falling a victim to the very system you used to run down, the thing you used to hate?" Her face was pitiful in its agitation. "Don't you remember how you used to speak of life, that it was an attack on the unknown, an assault uphill-as though you had to take some castle that you knew was there, but couldn't see, on the top-"

He muttered uncomfortably:-

"Oh! I was young then-foolish. That was just romantic talk..."

      1. He had stopped taking the initiative, had stopped growing, had settled back into comfortable, unimaginative ways.

      2. He had lost the sense of obligation.

    1. The young doctor in Cronin's novel illustrates the tension between an ordered, structured routine and a creative approach that disturbs the customary pattern.

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  1. We are prone to sacrifice integration.

    1. Ernest Gordon who wrote, Through the Valley of the Kwai tells of one particular evening in the camp when the men felt drawn especially close to one another.

When I had finished my story for the night I was aware of a sense of kinship. We were human beings with the same puzzlements and the same hopes. We were being drawn toward a center that was beyond ourselves, a center that was good, that gave us cause to hope, that promised the fulfillment of life-a life that was joyously sweet.*

Gordon was an agnostic when he entered the death camp by the River-Kwai. He was' asked by the men to lead them in "another go at this Christianity"* to find out whether or not there might be something in it for them. In searching out answers for them, Gordon found answers for himself. He became the Dean of the Chapel at Princeton University. He found the "center ... that promised the fulfillment of life."*

He tells of a conversation with twenty-eight-year old soldier whose illness and suffering ,made him look like an old man.

The soldier is speaking:

"Do you know what I've come to think? There's a harmony about life. When you put yourself in tune with that harmony, you sense the rightness about things. You know a peace in your heart."

"You've found that peace, then?"

"Yes, I reckon I have. I used to gripe and complain about everything-about the Nips, the Government, my buddies, myself."

"Most of us have been feeling that way," I acknowledged. "Maybe we have. But I bet I was one of the worst." "How do you figure the change came about?" I asked.

"It came gradually," he said. "I learned to accept things-to accept the Nips and their awfulness. I accepted my mates. I accepted myself. Then I stopped griping so much and tried to do what I could to help. Every little bit I gave made me seem more at ease with myself. I decided no matter what happens I've got to do what I believe to be right."*

    1. Integration is achieved.

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CONCLUSION:

  1. A young man was apprenticed to a master artist who produced the most beautiful stained glass windows anywhere. (3)

    1. The apprentice could not approach the master's genius, so he borrowed his master's tools, thinking that was the answer.

    2. After several weeks, the young man said to his teacher, "I'm not doing any better with your tools than I did with mine."

    3. The teacher replied, "So, it's not the tools of the master you need; it's the spirit of the master you need."

  2. The spirit of the Master is the theme of a story that Fred Craddock, tells the story of a boy and his father. (4)

    1. Let the son tell his story in his own words.

My mother took us to church and Sunday school; my father didn't go. I complained about Sunday dinner being late when she came home. Sometimes the preacher would call, and my father would say, "I know what the church wants. Church doesn't care about me. Church wants another name, another pledge, another name, another pledge. Right? Isn't that the name of it? Another name, another pledge." That's what he always said.

Sometimes we'd have a revival. Pastor would bring the evangelist and say to the evangelist, "There's one now, sic him, get him, get him," and my father would say the same thing. Every time, my mother in the kitchen, always nervous, in fear of flaring tempers, of somebody being hurt. And always my father said, "The church doesn't care about me. The church wants another name and another pledge." I guess I heard it a thousand times.

One time he didn't say it. He was in the veterans' hospital, and he was down to 73 pounds. They'd taken out his throat, and said, "It's too late." They put in a metal tube, and X-rays burned him to pieces. I flew in to see him. He couldn't speak, couldn't eat. I looked around the room, potted plants and cut flowers on all the windowsills, a stack of cards 20 inches deep beside his bed. And even that tray where they put food, if you can eat, on that was a flower. And all the flowers beside the bed, every card, every blossom, were from persons or groups from the church.

He saw me read a card. He could not speak, so he took a Kleenex box and wrote on the side of it a line from Shakespeare. If he had not written this line, I would not tell you this story. He wrote: "In this harsh world, draw your breath in pain to tell my story."

I said, "What is your story, Daddy?"

And he wrote, "I was wrong."

    1. To love is better than sacrifice.

      1. Don't be wrong!

      2. Be Right!

Amen!

1. Pastor Tim [posts@cybersaltlists.org]

2. Ben Patterson, Serving God: The Grand Essentials of Work and Worship (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1994), 158-59.

3. --As quoted in Paul J. Wharton, Stories and Parables for Preachers and Teachers (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1986), 21.

4. Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), 14.

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