The Unlovely Word That is Lovely: Sacrifice
Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. “There is still one thing you haven’t done,” he told him. “Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” At this, the man's face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Mark 10:21-22 (NLT)
Do not think the journey will be easy. It will not. I wish someone would have told me before I started out on this path. Oh, wait a minute – they did. God’s word is filled with forewarning. Enter at your own risk. Do not take up the plow and turn to look back. Take up your cross and follow me. Those were the passages I didn’t like so it was pretty easy to ignore them, to skip over them and race ahead to the happier stuff.
A few weeks ago when I was teaching the family stories of Genesis, a woman asked about the story of God instructing Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. She shared that her father couldn’t get past this horrible story; he couldn’t trust a God who would ask such a thing. I agreed and tried to explain how God was teaching Abraham and a world to come of the great sacrifice He would make when His own son would be sacrificed on the cross for us. I knew my answer brought no relief from the horror of the request.
Later that week I read of Jesus’ disheartening conversation with the ‘rich young ruler’. That enthusiastic young man had run to Jesus, asking how to inherit eternal life. After affirming the prescribed keeping of the law, Jesus looked at him and ‘loved him’. And then he recommended the one requirement the rich young ruler could not do: “Sell all your belongings and come follow me.”
Afterwards, Peter and the others asked Jesus about this conversation and it became even more disheartening. Jesus told them it was very difficult for a rich person – one who seemed to be receiving all the blessings of God – to enter into Heaven. Now it was Peter’s turn to sigh a deep sigh. “Then it is impossible!” Peter cried.
“Ah,” Jesus said to him – and I imagine his voice was filled with love, “What is impossible for man is possible for God.”
This Sunday I sat in the fifth row of The Church of the Apostles and listened, stunned, as Dr. Michael Youssef cried, telling of his anguish when he reads that familiar story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. Here was a man of God, who still aches with hurt over the heartbreak of another's response to God's request for sacrifice.
Sacrifice. Do we expect God to sacrifice for us – yet we balk at the idea of sacrificing for Him? Do I place myself above my God? Sacrifice. What am I guarding as more important than my relationship with God? What do I place above Him?
God called me back into a relationship with Him in my 30's. I had asked him into my heart as a child, experienced a sweet friendship with Him in my teens, placed Him, and His word on a shelf in my 20's. When I was 37, with a supportive husband and two children, I defined the success in my life, not by my roles as a wife or mother – but by my career. And I had made the terrifying decision to step away from the career I had been carefully building as an Art Director in film (overseeing everything visual from wardrobe to props to set design and locations) to begin taking on the role of Director. It was a huge gamble. I had invested money and time and many favors into developing a Director's reel, I had found a Film Production company to represent me, I was starting to get my foot into the doors of Advertising Agencies. And I was the only woman I knew who was doing such a thing in a very male-dominated world.
Simultaneously, God had reentered my life and dropped me into the middle of a very conservative, theologically sound church where my consciousness was constantly being pricked and prodded by the voice of God. And what I started being aware of was the limits I had placed on this God. This God who had started speaking to me in the still of the night. This God who seemed more real than anything else. This God who wanted to be in every part of my life. I would say to Him, “You just stay over there – don’t go messing with this part of my life.” But He wasn’t so easily contained.
One morning, sitting at my vanity table, (which tells you a lot about me right there if you have read Pilgrim’s Progress), I finally said those words to Him. "Okay. I surrender. I let go. If you want me to quit what I am doing, I will. If you want me to give up my career, homeschool my children, and wear denim jumpers, I will. I won't like it, but I will do it." It was my moment of letting go of what I thought defined me. I laid everything down at His feet and under His command. It was not easy. I did not want to. I did not like it. It hurt like hell.
Sacrifice. He did it for us. If we want to follow Him, we will be asked to sacrifice something. It will be different for each one of us. He will ask for the one thing we are placing above Him. It is a barrier. Are we willing to let go of that barrier so we can see Him more clearly? So we can love Him more fully? For Abraham, the sacrifice was his beloved son. For the rich young ruler, the sacrifice was his wealth. For me, the sacrifice was my dream career.
And here is the interesting thing. God asks for it – but He doesn’t always take up what you lay down. Or at least in the way you expect. With Abraham, the angel stopped him as he raised his knife and God provided a ram entangled in the briars instead. With me, He answered my prayer of sacrifice with my first national commercial, awarded to me that week – out of the blue. And He used that 25-year long career as a Director to take me across this fine nation to have amazing God-arranged conversations with people I would work with.
Sometimes it would be a two-day long conversation with the lighting Gaffer who was an avowed atheist yet was fascinated with the idea of God. (Iowa.) Sometimes it would be a three-minute conversation with an agency copywriter who realized she missed praying and going to church. (Toronto.) Sometimes it would be hand to hand combat with Satan fighting to steal the faith of a new believer. (Detroit.) With the award of each job, as I packed my bags I would ask God: “Well, who are you sending me to talk with this time?” My surrendered career became His ministry. I learned that when we lay something down before God, He will use it in very unexpected ways.
I wonder what the rich young ruler missed out on.
Question: Is the word ‘sacrifice’ personal? If you are walking behind Jesus, I am betting God has asked something hard of you. I am comforted by the rest of the conversation Jesus had that day with the ones who chose to follow him. You can read the whole story in Mark 10:17-31. Here is the promise within it. It is a promise for both now and in the future:
28 Then Peter began to speak up. “We’ve given up everything to follow you,” he said.
29 “Yes,” Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and for the Good News, 30 will receive now in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property—along with persecution. And in the world to come that person will have eternal life. 31 But many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then.”
*Note on the photograph: Yep, that’s me. Yep, that’s Ray Charles. Once I surrendered, God’s ideas about what my Directing career would look like was much bigger than my own. God does keep the promise that He will replace what was given up ‘a hundred times as many’. Every opportunity I have ever had comes directly from God’s hand. And He is generous.
I Surrender Hillsong with Lauren Daigle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4N2ausO6Sw
New Living Translation (NLT) Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.