Sacrafice

®

Sacrifice—Experience a Deeper Way to Love.indd 1 10/26/11 8:27 AM

Copyrighted material

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the first edition of the Holy Bible, New Liv-ing Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, IL 60189 USA. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked niv are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV ®. Copy-right © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

All emphasis (italics) in Scripture verses has been added by the authors.

Cover by Koechel Peterson & Associates, Inc., Minneapolis, Minnesota

Cover photo © iStockphoto / Thinkstock

THE UNSHAKABLE TRUTH is a trademark of The Hawkins Children’s LLC. Harvest House Publish-ers, Inc., is the exclusive licensee of the trademark THE UNSHAKABLE TRUTH.

SACRIFICE—EXPERIENCE A DEEPER WAY TO LOVE Course 5 of The Unshakable Truth® Journey Growth Guides Copyright © 2012 by Josh McDowell Ministry and Sean McDowell Published by Harvest House Publishers Eugene, Oregon 97402 www.harvesthousepublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-7369-4343-7 (pbk.) ISBN 978-0-7369-4344-4 (eBook)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or trans-mitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 / VP-NI / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1



http://www.harvesthousepublishers.com

Contents

What Is the Unshakable Truth Journey All About? . . . . . . . . . . 7

SESSION ONE

The High Price of Forgiveness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

SESSION TWO

How Do We Know Jesus Was the Perfect Sacrifice? . . . . . . . . . . 29

SESSION THREE

Jesus Defines the Meaning of Love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

SESSION FOUR

How to Express Christlike Love to Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

SESSION FIVE

Demonstrating Love Within Your Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Take the Complete Unshakable Truth Journey! . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Evaluation Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80



13

tHe HIGH PRICe oF FoRGIVeness

Think of how many times in your

life you have said, “I’m sorry”

and “That’s okay, I forgive you .”

Giving and receiving forgiveness is a part

of life . Identify a time when it was very

diffi cult to say, “I forgive you” to someone

who really off ended and hurt you .

Why was it so hard to forgive?

SESSION ONE



14

SACRIFICE

Someone read the following .

Forgiveness is about granting relief; giving up a claim for compensation; pardoning; releasing or setting a person free of an offense. And forgiveness does not come without a price. It costs something for us to forgive.

Some time ago a man in Ohio went on a shoot-ing spree and murdered a 27-year-old husband and father. The shooter was convicted and sentenced to die. The widow was at the murderer’s execu-tion. The accused gave the longest final statement by a condemned Ohio inmate in memory. Dur-ing his statement he looked straight at his victim’s widow and said, “I am sorry.” After the execution the widow was unsatisfied with the man’s remorse and said, “It’s like I tell my kids: ‘Sorry doesn’t cut it; you did it.’ ”

The condemned man said he was sorry and even paid the high price of his own life for his crime, but that obviously wasn’t a high enough price as far as the widow was concerned. Sometimes it is very hard to forgive.



15

Session One: The High Price of Forgiveness

Something within our relational DNA wants pay-ment before forgiveness is granted. We have a sense of justice. When wrong is done we want justice to prevail. This sense of justice comes from being cre-ated in the image of God. For “God is the Rock; his work is perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!” (Deuteronomy 32:4). The very character of God is just. When wrong is done he says, “I will take vengeance. I will repay those who deserve it” (Deuteronomy 32:35). The apostle Paul said, “In his justice he will punish those who persecute you” (2 Thessalonians 1:6).

Justice requires payment for wrong done. We have a justice system within states, within the country, and around the world that has established a judicial court system to mete out human justice.

But what about the higher judicial court system of heaven? Can God just say, “Sure, you sinned, but that’s okay, forget it—I’ll forgive you and we’ll be friends”? The reality is that God by nature is holy. He can’t just overlook sin. The Bible says of God, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you can-not tolerate wrong” (Habakkuk 1:13 niv). God is so holy that he “cannot allow sin in any form” (Ha-bakkuk 1:13). So by his very nature he is unable to have a relationship with those infected with sin.



16

SACRIFICE

Th erefore, even though he is “rich in mercy” (Ephesians 2:4), sin separates us from him. And that separation is a big deal because sin has caused a dreadful consequence: death. Th e apostle Paul said we “were dead, doomed forever because of [our] many sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Dead people can’t ac-cept forgiveness even when it’s off ered. Th ey can’t accept anything, because they’re dead. So that pre-sents quite a dilemma. In order for God to forgive us his sense of justice has to address our sin. But just how does he do that?

OUR GROUP OBJECTIVE

To gain a deeper sense of gratitude

to God for how his perfect character

of justice addresses our sin, allowing

him to forgive and redeem us.

God put an amazing and miraculous plan in place in order to

forgive and redeem you . Understanding this plan and what it

took will enable you to cultivate a deeper sense of gratitude to

God .



17


Someone read Genesis 22:1-8 .

Isaac had been taught by his father that there was a price to be

paid to obtain forgiveness . A living, breathing creature had to

die as a blood sacrifice . Abraham’s faith was being tested, but

what further was God trying to teach Abraham by asking him

to sacrifice his son? How was this sacrifice different for Abra-

ham than other animal sacrifices he had performed before?

Someone read Genesis 22:11-13 .

Abraham proved something to God while at the same time

making a blood sacrifice . What did Abraham prove, and what

blood sacrifice was made?




18

SACRIFICE

Abraham, like all of us, had sinned and was dead spiritually and separated from God. But in this dramatic example, God was showing him that he had a miraculous plan in place by which Abraham and the rest of us could be brought back to spiri-tual life in exchange for another life. The ram’s life was sacrificed “in place of his son.” But it could not be just any life. It had to be a certain type of sac-rificial life exchange. There was a certain condi-tion—a criterion required of this sacrifice that was extremely important.

Someone read Leviticus 1:1-4 .

What kind of bull was required? _____________________________

Why was the person required to lay hands on the head of the

bull?

Why did the bull need to die, though it had done nothing wrong?



19



The death of a holy and perfectly healthy ani-mal became the substitute for the sinner deserv-ing of death. An innocent life was taken in place of a guilty life. However, the animal sacrifices that God instructed his people to make were but a tem-porary solution to our dilemma of sin and death. They were only a symbol of what was to come. In order for the consequences of sin (death) to be re-versed so we could be made alive to God, a more powerful and perfect sacrifice had to be made.

Someone read 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Peter 1:18-19, and Hebrews

2:14-15 .

Think back on what the widow whose husband was murdered

said: “Sorry doesn’t cut it; you did it .” Simply telling God you

are sorry for your sin doesn’t cut it either . Something more is

needed . Did Jesus’ death “cut it” in God’s eyes? Was Jesus a high

enough price for God to forgive you? Why?



20

SACRIFICE

Someone read the following . (This is drawn from chapter 20 of

The Unshakable Truth book .)

Our freedom from the enslavement of sin and death was through the acceptable and redeeming act of Christ as our sacrifice. It was “redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement” (Romans 3:24-25 niv). Re-demption in this verse is a commercial term. It is a reference to the high price paid to purchase a slave in that day—a price so high that it not only pur-chased the slave, but also purchased the legal paper- work to buy the slave completely out of slavery. This redemptive price brought total freedom so the person would never again be sold back into slav-ery. Redemption is the act of Christ freeing us from slavery to sin and death.

The blood sacrifice of bulls and goats was not sufficient or pow-

erful enough for a just God to cancel our death sentence . Jesus,

the perfect Lamb of God, was necessary . But his death alone

wasn’t sufficient either . Something more was needed .

In addition to Jesus’ death on the cross, what do you think

was further needed to allow God to forgive us of our sins and

redeem us?



21


Someone read Hebrews 9:11-12 .

How was our redemption secured by offering a blood sacrifice

in the temple before God the Father? Whose blood was it? (This

also answers the previous question posed above .)


In mercy and love God the Son died for us.

In justice and holiness God the Father accepts his Son’s sacrifice to redeem us.

In power and life God the Holy Spirit declares us righteous and tells us we are his children.

In Jesus we have a sacrificial Savior, Great High Priest, and Effective Defender who sprinkled his own blood in the temple before his Father God “to remove the power of sin forever by his sacrificial



22

SACRIFICE

death for us” (Hebrews 9:26). What the priests of the Old Testament did as they sacrificed animals year after year in order to atone for sin was a con-tinuing, ritualistic picture foreshadowing the real sacrifice to come. The true sacrifice was completed in Jesus’ final act as High Priest when he “offered himself to God as one sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then he sat down at the place of highest honor at God’s right hand” (Hebrews 10:12).

Therefore:

We believe the truth that

Jesus, as the sinless Son

of God, atoned for our sin

through his death on the

cross. And the offering of

his blood as a sacrifice for

sin redeems us so we are

forgiven—set free—and

raises us to new life in him.



23


Truth Encounter

Someone read Hebrews 10:19-23.

The writer of Hebrews summarizes the gift of God’s forgiveness

and Christ’s redemption in Hebrews 10 . What if we were to use

our imagination to make the truths of Hebrews 10 come alive?

Take the next few moments and imagine the most magnifi-

cent, gloriously beautiful throne room that your mind’s eye can

comprehend . There is a clearly marked crimson pathway that

leads to this royal room, and at the room’s center rest two bril-

liantly illuminated thrones: one throne for God, the Father—

and to the right, one for Christ, the Son . This throne room is a

holy place . Only royalty and those whom the Holy One declares

righteous can enter in . This throne room is an intimate place .

Only unity and love reside here . Can you imagine what a privi-

lege it would be to enter into such a place?

While you may feel unworthy of such a privilege, is it easy or

comfortable for you to accept a seat beside Jesus in this mag-

nificent throne room? Why or why not?

!



24

SACRIFICE

You do have such a privilege as a follower of Jesus . You have

this honor as one who has been called by him . Reflect on how

the writer of Hebrews traces your journey .

Someone read the following and complete the sentence or

thought .

• You have access: Before your relationship with

Jesus, the way into God’s glorious sanctuary was

closed to you . But now you can have confidence to

approach the Holy One . You are now accepted into

the throne room . You have access into the pres-

ence of Almighty God because ________________

__________________________________________ .

• You have intimacy: Jesus’ death opened your

access to the throne of grace . Just like the curtain

in the Temple, which was torn from top to bottom

(see Mark 15:38), Christ’s body was torn at Calvary .

His suffering and his sacrifice at Calvary opened

the pathway to the divine presence of God . You

are allowed access to the most intimate of settings

because a perfect Priest offered the ____________

__________________________________________ .

• You have an Advocate: And since you have a High

Priest who sits on his throne at the right hand of

God, you have an Advocate—One who prays to



25


the Father on your behalf . Because of what the

Priest has done, you can draw _________________

__________________________________________ .

• You have a sacrifice: On that day when you knelt

before the throne and humbly acknowledged your

need for Jesus and accepted his gift of redemption,

imagine how the Son must have leaned toward

you and gently placed his hand upon your head—

identifying himself with you—signifying his will-

ingness to _________________________________

__________________________________________ .

• You have right standing: On that day when you

accepted Christ’s gift, you were declared righ-

teous; a marvelous exchange took place . In

exchange for your sinfulness, you received the

Son’s robe of righteousness . You can now stand in

the presence of the Father, freed from any sense of

_____________________, confident of your standing

before God, assured of your ____________________

_____________________—all because you wear the

regal robe of the Son .

• All of this is freely available because of God’s initia-

tive and forgiveness . Jesus paid the price just for

_________________________!



26

SACRIFICE

Spend the next few moments declaring your unshakable hope

in the truth of Hebrews 10:19-23 through praise and thanks to

God . Consider singing songs of worship . Express your gratitude

for what Christ has done for you to one another . Then verbalize

your gratitude to God in prayer . Pray with one or two others in

your group and express your hope-filled testimony of his faith-

fulness . Your prayers might sound like:

“God, I am filled with ________________ (hope/gratitude/amaze-

ment) for how your Son’s sacrifice allows me to experience

_________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________ .”

TruthTalk—An Assignment of the Week

This week take time to share with a family member or friend

what you experienced in this session . Consider saying some-

thing like:

1 “I’ve been learning about the

meaning of forgiveness and the

incredible price that Jesus paid on



27


the cross . These truths have been

so meaningful to me because…

.”

2 “I’ve been learning more about

some of the ways that Jesus loves

us . One of the ways he loves us

is that he tells God that he took

our punishment for when we do

things that are wrong . I am so

thankful for that because…

.”

3 “I’ve been learning about God’s

forgiveness—how he ‘lets go’

of the wrong things I’ve done

because he remembers that Jesus

took the consequences of my sin

on the cross . That’s incredible to

me because…

It is Jesus’ death

on the cross that

atones for your sins.

He became your

sacrifi ce for sin. His

death substitutes

for your death, and

then his resurrection

to life is your resur-

rection to new life in

him. So because of

his atoning sacrifi ce

you can be set free,

forgiven of your

sins, and escape

eternal banishment

from the presence

of God. “For Christ

died for sin, once for

all, the righteous for

the unrighteous, to

bring you to God”

(1 Peter 3:18 NIV).



28

SACRIFICE

.”

Read chapter 20 of The Unshakable Truth book as a review of

this session and chapter 29 for the next session .

Close in Prayer



Sacrafice

Documents

Transcript of Sacrafice