3. Making disciples must be sacrificial.
Truth be told, sometimes it’s a huge challenge to be sacrificial.
Sure, I don’t mind taking the time to pray for someone or share my faith with them if they are directly in my path. But to get in my car and drive somewhere that is off the beaten path … not so easy.
Yet the cross of Christ, if anything, is pointing us to the sacrificial nature of God.
God gave of himself, totally off the beaten path (of heaven), so that people that he cared for and loved could call heaven “home.” As the biblical author writes, Jesus “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26).
Isn’t this one of the significant themes that is found in the parable of the Good Samaritan? In Luke 10:25-37, we read of a Samaritan man being sacrificially generous and Jesus closing the parable with the words, “You go, and do likewise” (v.37).
There’s a man in our church community that embodies this attitude in every way possible. His name is Mike, and he has this uncanny ability to sacrifice his time, energy and money in ways that I am blown away by.
When he finds out about people’s needs, he’s the first one to go and meet them. I don’t think enough space exists to talk about how many driveways he has plowed snow off of, how much money he has given away, or how much wood he has split and delivered for people to have heat in their houses. The man is a giant of sacrificial giving.
And guess what? It’s made a huge difference in our community, and I can say without reservation that much of his service fits right into being intentional but is also heavily sacrificial. He serves, even when it isn’t convenient, and often gives credit away or shares it with the other people that he brings with him.
