EXTRAVAGANT SACRIFICE
1 John 3:1
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR
1. Boudreaux had a friend who bet him $5 that he couldn’t eat the man’s 50-pound watermelon. Boudreaux was silent for a few minutes looking at the watermelon. Then he said, “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
2. After that time Boudreaux returned and said, “I’ll take you up on that bet.” And he began eating the watermelon. As he was eating it the man asked, “Where did you go during that 30 minutes you were gone?”
3. Boudreaux said, “I remembered that my uncle Burcey had a watermelon under his porch about the same size. And I said to myself, ‘If I can eat uncle Burcey’s watermelon, then I can eat his watermelon!’”
B. TEXT
In 1 John 3:1, John talked about the “lavish love” of God. What God did, is so over-the-top, that the only word for it is “extravagant.”
C. THESIS
1. “Extravagant” means: “strange, curious; exceeding the limits of reason or necessity; unreasonably high in price.”
2. We’re looking at Jesus’ extravagant sacrifice for us, His call for us to make the same sacrifice, and that souls are worth that sacrifice. The title is, “Extravagant Sacrifice.”
I. JESUS MADE AN EXTRAVAGANT SACRIFICE FOR US
A. JESUS’ SACRIFICE FOR US: 7 WONDERS
Jesus sacrificed for us! He suffered more than anybody else ever suffered! It causes ME wonder! Here’s 7 wonders I have:
1. WONDER #1: THAT GOD WOULD DECIDE TO SAVE MAN
a. It’s not a wonder that God would make man. But it was a wonder that God decided to redeem man. If I had been God when Adam & Eve disobeyed and fell into sin, I would’ve looked ahead and seen all the misery in store for the human race, and I would’ve taken that opportunity to pull the plug on the human race and quit while I was ahead.
b. But God didn’t do that!
2. WONDER #2: THAT JESUS WOULD VOLUNTEER
a. Why in the world would Jesus, the Prince of the Universe, who stood to gain nothing and to lose everything, volunteer to die in order to save the depraved human race?
b. What was in it for Him? We didn’t even know Him yet.
3. WONDER #3: THAT THE FATHER WOULD LET JESUS SUFFER SUCH EXTREMES.
a. The extreme of becoming human; of suffering such horrible abuse by us – I can’t imagine.
b. Jesus had to experience all sin! He had to be immersed in filth; all the rapes, murders, and all the evil in history, all descended on Him.
4. WONDER #4: THAT GOD WOULD LET HUMANS LIVE IN HEAVEN.
a. Letting humans live in heaven, forever, is like having rowdy company move into your house – not for a day or week or month, but for eternity.
b. Jesus agreed to let Heaven be altered by our rowdy crowd. Why would God do that?
5. WONDER #5: THAT HE WOULD LET US EAT FROM THE TREE OF LIFE.
a. If I were God, living forever, and had the human race, living only short life spans; and knowing how bothersome they are, would I want to give them a lifespan equal to my own?
b. God had it right the first time by placing an angel at the gate of the Garden of Eden to keep humans from reentering the Garden and eating of the Tree of Life and living forever. Why would He change His mind now?
6. WONDER #6: THAT GOD WOULD PUT HIS HOLY SPIRIT INSIDE US.
a. That’s getting too close for comfort! I like to be around people, but as evil as most people are in their hearts (Paul said that he “inwardly burned”) how could God subject the Holy Spirit to people who are often actively sinning?
b. Undoubtedly there was no other way; we had to have the Holy Spirit inside us to transform us from the inside out.
7. WONDER #7: THAT GOD WOULD LOVE US!
I John 3:1, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us…” NIV. This is the greatest love story of all time. Why?
a. It’s an incomprehensible love. According to Eph. 3:19, “Christ’s love is greater than any person can ever know....” ICB
b. It’s an undeserved love. Rom. 5:8
c. It’s a constraining love. 2 Cor. 5:14
d. It’s an everlasting love! Jer. 31:3
B. NO GREATER LOVE
1. Paul said, “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” Rom. 5:6-8.
2. Paul points out that virtually no one would die for a criminal or profligate, yet that’s what Jesus did for us. While we were “sinners” and “enemies,” Christ died for us.
3. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” Jn. 15:13. There are many people who love us -- our parents, spouses, children, etc. But the Lord Jesus says that He loves us with a greater love than any of them!
4. This great love drove Jesus to abandon his throne, his honor, his riches (2 Cor. 8:9), and his eternity and enter a world of time, death, sweat, poverty, obscurity, and scorn. What Jesus did was infinitely more difficult than what He might have done. He could have destroyed us and started over.
5. Instead, he allowed himself to be treated as a criminal, suffer death by the cruelest means, become the bearer of all sin, and die forsaken by God the Father! No wonder the song was written, “Amazing Love! How can it be? that Thou, My God, shouldst died for me!”
II. JESUS CALLED US TO EXTRAVAGANT SACRIFICE
A. WE’RE CALLED TO CONTINUE JESUS’ SACRIFICE
1. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you!” Jesus was the Light of the world (Jn. 8:12), but now He calls US to be the light of the world (Mt. 5:14). We are to model Jesus’ love and compassion to a lost world. He calls us to make the same kind of extravagant sacrifices that He made.
2. Jesus usually had requirements for His followers; “Sell all that you have,” “Come and follow Me,” “Let the dead bury their own dead,” “If they slap you on one cheek turn to them the other also.”
3. We’re to be “little Christs,” to demonstrate His personality and nature. As we show the love of Jesus, people will see the difference and choose to surrender their lives to God. IT’S OUR EXTRAVAGANT SACRIFICE THAT WILL CONVINCE THEM THAT JESUS IS THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD!
B. ILLUSTRATION
1. The Emperor Justinian, emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople from 527 until 565, “ransacked the Roman Empire” to gather enough marble to build the largest cathedral in the world, Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom” in Constantinople.
2. Justinian had 10,000 masons employed in laying the marble and structure. When he dedicated it in 538, he exclaimed, “Solomon, I have surpassed you!” Just the cost of the gold in the building was $400 million. The overall construction must have been double that!
3. When the kings of the barbarians to the north came to visit Justinian (and subsequent emperors), and saw the immense structure dedicated to God – the choirs, the ornate priests, the praying masses, the enormous sacrifice – they turned to Christ and led their nations to do the same.
4. The extravagant sacrifice they saw moved them to consider how Great the God of the Christians must be! And they became Christians – Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, and up into Russia!
C. SACRIFICE ON A PERSONAL LEVEL
1. Jermaine Washington had a friend on the job, Michelle Stevens. From time to time they had lunch together. Then one day Michelle began to weep as she spoke about waiting on a kidney donor list for 11 months. She was being sustained by kidney dialysis, but suffered chronic fatigue and blackouts and was plagued by joint pain.
2. Jermaine Washington was touched by his friend’s terrible condition. He couldn't stand the thought of watching his friend die, so he decided to donate one of his kidneys to her. The surgery was successful.
3. Michelle will never be able to pay him back for his gift, but now, 3X a month, Jermaine and Michelle get together for what they call a "gratitude lunch." [Today in the Word, 11/14/1993]
III. PEOPLE’S SOULS ARE WORTH EXTRAVAGANT SACRIFICE
A. PUTTING SACRIFICE IN PERSPECTIVE
1. David Livingstone, Scottish missionary, spent thirty-three years in the heart of Africa. He walked over 29,000 miles through jungles and hostile tribes. One arm hung limp from a lion’s bite. His wife died early in their ministry. He said,
2. “Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay?...It is emphatically no sacrifice. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger....these are nothing....when we remember the great sacrifice which HE made who left his Father’s throne on high to give himself for us.”
B. THE VALUE OF A SOUL
1. Whatever it costs us to get them saved, it will never be too much. Jesus said in Mt. 16:26, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
2. One soul is worth more than all the world. Think of it; one soul was worth the life of the Son of God. The angels rejoice when one soul is transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Why? What do the angels see that we don’t see?
a. That souls will live forever.
b. That all souls originally belonged to God, but many have become allied with the devil. The recovery of even one of them, is a child of God, restored. It’s cause for God’s angels to cheer.
c. Another reason is the specter of eternal punishment and separation from God that awaits those who reject Christ. The angels see the terrible danger and know how long eternity is. Jesus died to save souls from Hell. It’s in our hands to act and save them!
C. WE’RE ENTRUSTED W/ THE SAME MISSION
1. The destiny of the human race was placed into the hands of Jesus. But now, Jesus has placed their destiny into OUR hands. GOD IS COUNTING ON US!
2. If something is important to Jesus and cost Him his life, it should be important to me, to make sure His work’s completed.
3. Many missionaries died trying to reach a people-group. Later their friends or family took up their mission and completed it. How much more shall we honor the Life of Him who loved us and died FOR US!
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION: JESUS, ‘DOING TIME’ FOR US
1. Near the city of Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, is a remarkable facility. Twenty years ago the Brazilian government turned a prison over to two Christians. They renamed it Humaita, and run it on Christian principles. Chuck Colson visited the prison and made this report:
2. ‘When I visited Humaita I found the inmates smiling- particularly the murderer who held the keys, opened the gates and let me in. Wherever I walked I saw men at peace. I saw clean living areas, people working industriously. The walls were decorated with Biblical sayings from Psalms and Proverbs.
3. My guide escorted me to the notorious prison cell once used for torture. Today, he told me, that block houses only a single inmate. As we reached the end of a long concrete corridor and he put the key in the lock, he paused and asked, “Are you sure you want to go in?” “Of course,” I replied impatiently, “I’ve been in isolation cells all over the world.”
4. Slowly he swung open the massive door, and I saw the prisoner in that punishment cell: a crucifix, beautifully carved by the Humaita inmates - the prisoner was Jesus, hanging on a cross. “He’s doing time for the rest of us,” my guide said softly.'” [Max Lucado]
B. THE CALL
1. Jesus “did time” (on this fallen world) for us! More than that, He liberated us from prison; now it’s time for us to liberate others. Will you commit to let Jesus show through you?
2. There’s one requirement: YOU HAVE TO GET FULL OF JESUS in order for His presence to pass through you to others. Let’s ask God to fill us with the Spirit of Jesus.
3. Is there any sacrifice we shouldn’t be willing to make for Him? He who loved us with an everlasting love? Have you surrendered your heart to Him? Let’s do that today.
4. Can you think of one person around you that you could show the love of God to? What could you do?
5. Let’s pray for that person that when you show them an “act of kindness” that God will open their heart to receive Jesus! PRAYER.
