Esther
Redemption Gospel Meeting • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 2 viewsNotes
Transcript
"Self Sacrifice"
Scott Ingram
TEXT: Esther 4:16 Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day: I also and my maidens will fast likewise; and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law: and if I perish, I perish.
THESIS: To show the importance of self sacrifice and the willingness to take the risk of personal loss to do the right thing.
INTRODUCTION:
1.We have many positive examples of self sacrifice throughout the scriptures.
A. Think of the widow who put in her two mites (Mark 12:41-44)
B. What about Barnabas who sold all his land? (Acts 4:37)
2. Self sacrifice is not only important for helping others in this world but is important for our own salvation as well. (Romans 12:1 "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.)
3. Without self sacrifice we would not have any opportunity to have salvation.
A. Sacrifice was made by God for our good.
B. Sacrifice must be made on our part as well if we wish to help those around us.
C. In the end, without sacrifice, both God's and ours, we would and will not have any hope of heaven.
DISCUSSION:
I. Sacrifice was made by God for our good. John 3:16
A. One can hardly go through the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament without noticing the great sacrifice that God made so that we could have the chance of being in heaven when this life is over.
1. God is longsuffering with us (2 Peter 3:9) and has been since the beginning, even when you think about the men alive during Noah's generation.
a.) Noah preached for 120 years.
b.) God didn't simply say for Noah to hurry up and build the ark so he could sneak onto it with his family.
c.) The bible says that those people were full of evil desires, thinking of nothing else but evil with never a thought to righteousness at all and it caused God to feel regret.
B. God showed us an example of both sacrifice and the risk of personal loss in our Lord Jesus Christ.
1. Jesus was tempted in all things, Hebrews 4:15.
a.) We know that temptation itself isn't a sin because of this fact and also recognize that Jesus sacrificed more than his blood and died for our sins but also lived what we wouldn't consider a pleasant life.
II. We must make sacrifices ourselves, at various times, to help those around us.
A. It isn't always easy, when we are just starting to live out Christianity, to give up on some of our own personal desires and ambitions but it is required in certain cases.
1. 1 Corinthians 8:13 shows a simple and easy to understand example of self sacrifice, that doesn't require much effort on a sincere and loving persons part but is never the less just one beginning point to teach the principle of self denial.
B. Sometimes our sacrifices require us to take on things rather than give them up and they aren't always physical in nature.
1. Galatians 6:2 tells us to bear one another’s burdens.
Maybe you see a person struggling with a sin that they are being deceived into, or self deceiving, maybe they even know it's a problem but are having trouble finding the strength to get out of it alone.
We are to help that person with the attitude of "by the grace of God go I" knowing that we could fall to something as well (1 Cor. 10:12)
III. In the end, we would have no hope of heaven without the sacrifice of God and our own sacrifice.
A. God has given to us so that we may give back with a pure heart, knowing that what we give isn't going to earn heaven but we give more easily because we have been given the hope of something more valuable than anything we could have here on earth.
1. If a man lay there dying after saving your life and had a final request that you could honor, wouldn't you do that?
2. How can we not make sacrifices when there has been a greater one made for us?
B. There are examples and Scriptures to support the idea that we can't hope to make it to heaven without giving certain things up.
1. John 12:25 "he that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal." teaches us to give up on our own pursuits and ideas of what will make us happy in the flesh here on earth and to pursue the life that God wants us to have, if our goals are contrary to righteous living that is to say.
2. We have to give up doubt, James 1:6 "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed."
CONCLUSION:
1. God made so much of a sacrifice for us, He gave something to which he neither gained back something of the same value nor anything of greater value, sending his Son Christ Jesus for redeem us from sin.
2. We must give back to those around us and God is righteous in expecting that to be the case, considering what was given for us.
3. In the end without sacrifice being made for us by God and our own sacrifice of our time, and other means, our lives for God and one another, then we should give up now, there is nothing we can do to earn a place in heaven since it's a place for the pure and perfect, but because we have been redeemed to that place blood of Christ, we must live sacrificial lives, obedient to the will of the Father.