PART 3 | ALL IN | SACRIFICE

March 20th, 2023
by Ryan Moon

All In Part 3 – Sacrifice; March 19, 2023

Intro: We’re wired for convenience

“What must our Lord think of us if His work and His witness depend upon the convenience of His people? The truth is that every advance that we make for God and for his cause must be made at our inconvenience. If it does not inconvenience us at all, there is no cross in it. If we have been able to reduce spirituality to a smooth pattern and it costs us nothing – no disturbance, no bother, and no element of sacrifice in it – we are not getting anywhere with God.”
A. W. Tozer

Context for David’s offering
1 Chronicles 21:8 (NIV2011)  
8 Then David said to God, “I have sinned greatly by doing this. Now, I beg you, take away the guilt of your servant. I have done a very foolish thing.”  

1 Chronicles 21:18 (NIV2011)
18 Then the angel of the LORD ordered Gad to tell David to go up and build an altar to the LORD on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

1 Chronicles 21:19-22 (NIV2011)
19 So David went up in obedience to the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the LORD.
20 While Araunah was threshing wheat, he turned and saw the angel; his four sons who were with him hid themselves. 21 Then David approached, and when Araunah looked and saw him, he left the threshing floor and bowed down before David with his face to the ground.
22 David said to him, “Let me have the site of your threshing floor so I can build an altar to the LORD, that the plague on the people may be stopped. Sell it to me at the full price.”

Araunah’s offer:
1 Chronicles 21:23 (NIV2011)
23 Araunah said to David, “Take it! Let my lord the king do whatever pleases him. Look, I will give the oxen for the burnt offerings, the threshing sledges for the wood, and the wheat for the grain offering. I will give all this.”

1 Chronicles 21:24-26 (NIV2011)
24 But King David replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on paying the full price. I will not take for the LORD what is yours, or sacrifice a burnt offering that costs me nothing.”
25 So David paid Araunah six hundred shekels of gold for the site.
26 David built an altar to the LORD there and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. He called on the LORD, and the LORD answered him with fire from heaven on the altar of burnt offering.

Romans 12:1 (NIV2011)
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

True and proper worship involves sacrifice

Sacrifice ascribes great value

Cost is the measure of worth
Example: Clearance Rack
Application: What we value vs. what the world values

“A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
Martin Luther

Sacrifice demonstrates great love
Example: Parenting
Application: Jesus’ great love

Sacrificial giving directs the human heart
Matthew 6:21 (NIV2011)
21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Example: Stock options