Sacrifice

Jim Clements · Tidal Church Moncton · April 20, 2025 · Easter series

Jim Clements explores sacrifice as giving up something of great value for something of greater value, centring on John 15:13 and John 3:16. At Easter, Jesus willingly laid down His life for each of us, paying our debt so we can know forgiveness and eternal life.

More from Jim Clements · The Easter series

Topics: Love, Forgiveness, Easter

Transcript

[0:00] When I was about 10, 11 years old, I was looking for something in the house and I couldn't find it. And I went from room to room, upstairs, downstairs, and I kept looking for this, this thing. I don't remember what it was. I can just remember I was going crazy trying to find it. And eventually I found myself in my parents' bedroom. They weren't around. And I'm like, "Well, let's look in here." And I went in through the room and looked on their nightstands and in the drawers, and I'm looking for whatever this thing is, and I find myself going to the closet. I bet you they would've put it in the closet. They didn't want me to have it. I'm gonna go to the closet and I'm gonna look in the closet. And so I go in the closet and I open my dad's side first and I notice that all of his shirts are inside of his sports jackets.

[0:49] And for the life of me, I'm trying to figure out why does he have his shirts inside of his sports jackets? And I've got to thinking about when he comes home at the end of the day, I would always see him begin to unbutton and take it off. He had an undershirt, take it off. And I went, and he hangs it up like that. And I went, "Well, I'm gonna fix that for him. I'm gonna take the shirts outta the jackets and hang them up individually." And by the time I just get to the second set, I quickly realize that the elbows in his long sleeve shirts are worn through. And the reason they're inside the jacket is so that nobody sees that they've worn through. See, with three boys that play sports that require hockey sticks and skates and equipment and ice time, there had to be a sacrifice.

[1:42] And for my dad, he sacrificed so that we could have the best of what we needed in the sports that we did. And so sacrifice is what he did for us by that simple, simple act. Sacrifice, we can define as something that is of great value that we give up for something of a greater value. I think we can all agree in our lives. There are times that we find ourselves in these situations when we go, "Oh boy, I'm gonna give this up in order to achieve or to be able to benefit someone else in this other way." And I think we can all agree that we do that in life. And that is truly the definition of sacrifice, is giving up something of great value for something of a greater value.

[2:35] I think back to when I first, my dad was so happy when I got to college and I got my first set of skates and that he didn't have to pay for. He was like so happy about it. And I still have those skates to this day, they're like 40 some years old and I still use 'em. And then I think about when I coached hockey and I came into contact with families who were sacrificing time, money, you know, tiredness, early mornings to get up to get their kids to hockey. And I said, "Well, I'm gonna make the same sacrifice in coaching for you as families, for you as children, that your children, I'm gonna make that same sacrifice together. I'll be someone who enters into that life with you and will sacrifice together something of good value, great value for something of a greater value."

[3:27] And many of you have done that also, whether it's football and they're in the mud and busted knuckles and torn muscles or injuries, or maybe ballet and they're dancing and they're twisting and the knee gets hurt. Maybe it's even somebody that's in a band and they're just learning. And you have to sacrifice listening to them learn to play the tuba. We've all sacrificed. And maybe some sacrifice that you make, especially this time of the year, Easter, is forced family fun that you're gonna go somewhere. And Aunt Susie's dessert that she thinks is absolutely wonderful, that no one has the heart to tell her to never make it again. You're gonna eat a piece of it. You're gonna sacrifice something of great value, which is your digestive system, for something of greater value, is how Aunt Susie feels.

[4:25] Well, as I coached this team, I never thought that I would be tested in the level of sacrifice that I would have to make. And during one of the games, my player, he got a penalty. And like most hockey players, they never think they should get a penalty. And so he argued it all the way to the penalty box. And when he got within ear distance to me and I called out for him to stop arguing, he did. But as he approached the penalty box and got in, the adult inside that penalty box grabbed my player, threw him into the bench part of that penalty box, then grabbed him again and pushed him up against the glass in that penalty box. We're talking 10, 11-year-old. And I jumped around that glass a lot faster than you think I can jump around a piece of glass.

[5:14] And I got in between that adult and that player. See, in that moment I was sacrificing my coaching career, of great value, for something of greater value, which is that child and the parents, of what I told 'em to do. And see, that's for us, when we live in those moments of sacrifice, we have to find ourselves giving up something of great value for the greater value. That's what sacrifice looks like. Without question, we can think of many times that we have found ourselves in those situations of having to make sacrifice. And we don't think much about it. We just give it up and we keep moving forward.

[6:01] There's a saying, a quote we often hear, and you can hear it inside, outside the church, anywhere you've been. And it said there is no greater value than someone who lays down their life for their friends. There's so many stories that we read about, that we see on reels or we see on videos on the internet, we watch on television, and we go to ourselves, "Man, that's some sacrifice that person made to lay their life down for a friend." See, our life we consider to be great value. Do we consider another's life to be of greater value?

[6:47] See, for us who are believers, who are Christians, who read the Bible and believe that is what God has given us to study, we know where that quote comes from, or we should know where that quote comes from. It comes from John 15:13. "There is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friend." Maybe you've never experienced that level of sacrifice, but maybe when you have seen it on television or maybe you've seen it personally, you think like, "That person's a hero." Like, that is an incredible act of bravery, man, the courage that they showed in that moment of sacrifice. Today we're gonna talk about such a sacrifice.

[7:32] I want you to know that there is somebody who has done such a sacrifice for each one of us. Someone who just didn't say, "I'm willing to make the sacrifice." Somebody who gave up His life to make that sacrifice. Someone who stepped in, just not in a moment of injustice or a moment in time, but stepped into all of humanity to make a difference by sacrificing His life. Today, I want you to know the real Jesus. There are not many instances in life that we come in contact with relationship wise that doesn't, that that gives us everything unconditionally that we need.

[8:19] There's always an expectation in return. There's always an expectation that something you're gonna have to give up in order to feel or to get what you want. A payment of some sort, a benefit to the other person. Not many times do others sacrifice for somebody else without it coming with something in return. Not often. However, there is one person who did do this, and today I want you to know the real Jesus. See, we have been conditioned to think about I, about me, what it is for me. And we don't want to sacrifice.

[9:04] We continue to think about what is the best for me. And in today's world, they have caused distractions, noise we can call it, that thinks that makes us think it's all about me. Well, let me tell you right now, it is not all about you. They will market to you. They will manipulate you. They will, they spend billions and billions of dollars to get you to sacrifice for something they get in return. See, because when we chase the earthly me or the earthly eye, that's when we're being distracted from actually receiving the ultimate sacrifice that was intended for us. The one thing that makes sure that we are fully complete and that we are fully and truly who we were created to be.

[9:58] And it's given freely by someone. Today, I want you to know the real Jesus. I would even say that we get tricked into it. We become numb to it. It's just a slow trickle, just a slow simple decision. Just a slow giving up of who we truly are, of who we've been created to be. Just a slowness that sacrifice after sacrifice, giving up what we are paying out to think about ourselves. You may be even sitting here right now and agree and go, I don't need to sacrifice anymore. I've sacrificed all I'm gonna sacrifice. My life's pretty good, my life's pretty full.

[10:44] I've got a good life. You wouldn't be wrong in thinking that, but you would be wrong in believing it, because that is what the manipulation is. You've got to give something up in order to get what they have for you. You're sacrificing it slowly, sometimes without even knowing. You're sacrificing it slowly, slowly, slowly, and you receive nothing in return for it. There's so much that life expects from us in so many different ways for even the simplest, smallest things, making us pay out, pay out, payout. Just a little bit of who you are, just a little bit of who you are, and you think you're getting to where you want to be.

[11:32] Sacrifice after sacrifice, day after day, decision after decision, all leading you away from the ultimate sacrifice that we celebrate today. If you receive that, it can stop the deception. It can stop the untruth. It can fulfill the life that is meant for you by who created you. But before I tell you more about the sacrifice of Jesus, I want you to think about the sacrifices that you've made like that. I think we can all agree that we made reasonable and sometimes unreasonable sacrifices through our lives for family, for friends, maybe even for a stranger. I've told the story before of standing in a store checkout.

[12:20] And the gentleman behind me, larger than who I am, is verbally abusing the cashier with language I can't even repeat in here. And in that moment, I turned and I looked at the person and I just said, you need to stop and you need to stop now. And I turned back around, hoping I would not end up on the floor. But we sacrifice great value for something of a greater value. And in that moment, that person was of greater value to me than what that other person thought. If we even look at other religions and belief systems around the world that people follow, that people are trying to figure out where their life is.

[13:07] They're not finding Jesus, they're going to these other things, they're sacrificing something. And in those other religions and belief systems, they have to give something up in order to receive what they have for them. It's built into who we are all the time in life. We are weighing good and bad. You know what we're doing? We're thinking about, is it worth sacrifice or not worth sacrifice? Here's the good, here's the pros, here's the cons. Do I really want to sacrifice it? Do I really not wanna sacrifice it? If you're sitting here and your car's in the parking lot right now, you go out and somebody dings your car in the church parking lot, you're thinking somebody's gotta pay. Somebody has to pay for this. You don't begin to think about maybe what that situation is, what maybe have happened.

[14:01] And this is what I did one time. I came home, the mailbox on my end of my driveway was sitting on my lawn. Somebody had completely run it over and I was like, someone's gonna pay, no, who's gonna pay, but someone's gonna pay. And I went up to my house and there was a post-it on the door and it said, here's a new mailbox in the box. And it said I had to turn around quickly 'cause my wife went in the labor and I happened to back over your mailbox. Not always someone has the pay.

[14:46] Not always does someone have the pay. Do we want to give up something of great value for something of greater value? Do you want to stop feeling robbed, shorted, and deceived and wanna start living the fullness and stop thinking that someone has to pay? Because I'm here to tell you somebody's already paid for it all. Somebody has already paid for it all. And I want you to know who Jesus is. His body, His blood, His sacrifice, His ultimate sacrifice for us. He paid it all. Without hesitation, He went to the cross, gave His life of great value for each of our lives of greater value. He paid it all, His life for your life, the ultimate sacrifice.

[15:37] Today, I want you to know the real Jesus and what He has for you. I want you to know that He who made the ultimate sacrifice for you and for me invites you into a fullness of life for eternity, not for a moment in time, but for eternity. Today you can know the real Jesus. On Easter, we remember this ultimate sacrifice that He made. God giving His only Son to bear our punishment, our sins, to take our place, to forgive our sins and to give us not just moments of peace and promise, but a life of eternity with Him.

[16:26] Remember that quote, John 15:13, there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. When Jesus spoke these words, He was sitting at the Last Supper and He knew what was to come and He knew of the betrayal and He knew where He was headed, but He still expressed love for others. He wasn't only talking about a physical death that He would experience and that we would experience someday. He's talking about allowing our life that we live every day to be laid down for others. Life lived selfishly invested and sacrificed for others, not just about I, not just about I.

[17:18] And in there He also says, friends, He didn't just mean His disciples. He meant everyone who professes that He is Lord and Savior and accepts the sacrifice that He meant. It's for all believers, all who believe in Him. John 3:16, "For this is how God loved the world. He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life." This scripture shows us first of all the sacrifice that God makes, but He does it with love. It says He gives His one and only Son. Love is expressed to us.

[18:04] He gives a gift, Jesus, to be sacrificed, to take on all that we need freedom from. He shows love, He gives us a gift. We're able to receive salvation as a result of the sacrifice that is made and then the blessing in return by Him giving up something of great value, His Son, to realize a greater value for each of us: is eternity with Him. To spend eternity with Him, the love, the gift, salvation and eternity together.

[18:50] There's nothing that you need to give in return. He just wants to be in relationship with you and He wants to do that for eternity so that you can know the fullness and freedom that comes. Again, why? Something of great value for something of greater value. This is the ultimate sacrifice. Jesus willingly went to the cross. Jesus willingly had us in mind. He had you in mind when He went to the cross, though He was mocked, though He was spit on, though He was beaten, betrayed, pierced. In His side, He shed His blood, His body was broken. And all the time He kept in mind, knowing who would be lost if He didn't make this sacrifice.

[19:40] You and me, He knew the world would be lost. So He wanted to free us from our sin and from the captivity that we would be held into in this world. He had a plan, He had a plan for all. He had a plan for you and He had a plan for me, for you is why He did it. For someone who did nothing wrong. Jesus did nothing wrong, but for a greater value, which is each one of us. So you can find the freedom, so you can find forgiveness, so you can find His grace so that you can experience eternal life.

[20:26] He did it for you. When we think of the Easter story, we think we come from a baby born in the manger to a young man growing up and in arguing what the Father's will is with those who were the leaders at the time, but building relationships with people. The disciples following Him so close that they talk about the dust that would come off His feet and onto them. That was the Jesus that knew He was going to the cross for you and for me. And then taken in judgment, taken by the same people who loved Him, who cried Hosanna, who praised Him and knew that He was the Messiah that was coming one day, stood in a courtyard and said, "Crucify Him."

[21:13] Crucify Him, and they were offered an option, a criminal or Rabbi Jesus. You pick the Messiah or a criminal. Jesus knew the sacrifice He was gonna make and they chose the criminal and Jesus died for him just like He died for you and for each one of us. We could be that Barabbas. We could be that one that gets chosen over Him and distracts people and takes them away from it. But He went to the cross and they nailed His hands and His feet and hung Him on the cross.

[22:01] And then He said the words, "It is finished." They took His body down, they wrapped it in linen and they put it in the tomb and they sealed that tomb with a rock and death thought it had won. Today, you need to know that Jesus died and gave the ultimate sacrifice for every one of us. He didn't just say it, He proved it with His life. Jesus didn't step in just for a moment. Jesus didn't step in just for injustice. Jesus stepped into the history of mankind to say, "Today everybody has the option to spend eternity with Me."

[22:52] But the story didn't end at the cross. They went back to the tomb and the rock was rolled away and the body of Jesus was gone, for He had defeated death. The great news is the reason we celebrate Easter is because the Man who made the sacrifice for each one of us to have eternity said, "Not today, not today, not today." Is darkness gonna have it? Not today. Is death gonna have it? It will be defeated so that all who I am sacrificing for the greater value will defeat death and darkness and it won't have a hold on them. It didn't have a hold on Him. It doesn't have a hold on you if you receive Him as your personal Lord and Savior by making that commitment today.

[23:41] Luke 24:46 says, and He said, "Yes, it is written long ago that the Messiah would suffer and die and rise from the dead on the third day. It is also written that this message would be proclaimed in the authority of His name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. There is forgiveness for the sins of all who repent." The story today is the story about the real Jesus. The story today is the story of Easter, the true story of Easter. And right now you might be thinking, "I'm too far away from where Jesus is." I want you to know that He built a bridge for you.

[24:29] You may think right now that you don't matter. I want you to know to Jesus you do matter. You may think you're too late. The time is now, and He is here for you. Now, you may think He didn't do it for you, He did it for you. He did it for me. He did it for everyone. His blood, His body, His death for us all. Jesus sacrificed for everyone. He's already paid it for you. Every one of us, He saw a greater value than the value of His own life. Every one of us, His blood has been applied and there's nothing stronger than His blood.

[25:21] There's nothing for you to pay. It's already been paid. Your debt has been paid. He paid it so that we could come out of darkness, so that we could come out of death, that we could come into the light and we could experience eternal life with Him. He defeated it all and He did it for you. He did it for me and He did it for you. Today I want you to know the real Jesus and receive Him and what He has for you.