An Incredible Sacrifice for an Incredible Savior

Introduction

Introduce yourself.

Tell them that when you were in PV Middle School it was in the student center and it used to be called Solid Rock.

Tell them that you’ve been going to PV longer than any of them have been alive (21 years).

I just got my college diploma in the mail yesterday and now I feel old.

Set up the series: “Old School”

This is the first week in a 3-week series.

We’re going to be looking at characters from the Old Testament to see what God wants to teach us about Himself and us through their stories.

Context

Read Genesis 22:1-18

The Greatness of the sacrifice of Abraham

Abraham had waited decades and decades to have a natural son. Longer than you or I have been alive. God finally brings about this dream and then asks him to lay it down.

What’s your greatest dream in life? What do you want most in life?

You can tell how much you love something by how much you would sacrifice for it.

Mom’s sacrifice

Mom and dad’s sacrifice in Great.

My sacrifice for pastoral ministry

Tell the about the wrestling and the first/worst sermon you ever preach where you forgot everything and Shawna counted you clearing your throat 93 times and then posted about it on Facebook.

If you’re not willing to sacrifice anything of substance for God, do you really love him? Maybe its pornography. May you need to sacrifice pornography. Will you sacrifice the infinitesimal pleasures of sin for the infinite glory of God?

God provided and didn’t spare his son.

How much does he have to love us to send his only son?

But it wasn’t just God who sacrificed. Read Philippians 2:5-11

Jesus sacrificed too. He gave up all he had in heaven to save us.

Jesus loved God so much that he was willing to sacrifice everything to do what God desired in being in relationship with you and I.

If you want to live like Jesus you have to sacrifice. As Christians, our lives should be marked by sacrifice.

The cross is the greatest overkill the universe has ever seen

You’re never so lost that Jesus can’t rescue you.

Nothing you could ever do could ever make God regret saving you!

Jesus silences the boast of sin and the grave.

No matter how rejected and unloved you feel, remember this: God didn’t want Heaven without you.

Gospel presentation

Pray