Dying & Living Sacrifice

A couple of verses from 2 Peter, verses 3, 4, 3 and 4. His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises that through these you may escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. And become partakers of the divine nature. What does it mean to be a partaker of the divine nature? Does it mean that if we're partakers of the divine nature, we have supernatural power and that we can walk down the boulevard and snap our fingers and turn the trees into stone? Often people think of having the divine nature might mean having supernatural wisdom so that we can read people's minds and foretell the future.

Now there may be times when supernatural power, supernatural wisdom attend the ways of the children of God, but that's not God's nature. To have God's nature simply is that now instead of having a nature which is set upon taking, we become like God with a nature that is set upon giving, all the time giving. Instead of, as the corrupt human nature is, always trying to acquire, to increase, to hoard, to build up for myself.

Now, the one thing that matters to us, the one thing we live for is to constantly give. Now when the divine nature, which is to give, comes down into this sin-warped human race, that giving very quickly becomes a sacrifice. It becomes costly.

It becomes bloody. Because this sin-warped human race will always, as long as it's in this shape, trample on divine love and kill it. And also because God knows that if we're ever to come into his fellowship again, a blood sacrifice is necessary.

So if we're really going to be able to get hold of the promises of God, by which we can escape the corruption which is in the world through lust and become partakers of the divine nature, we're going to have to see the divine nature. We're going to have to have eyes that see what God is really like, how good he is. That he's giving us the very best he has.

His treasure of treasures, his pearl of great price, his only begotten son. God's nature is not seen in displays of power or manifestations of force or supernatural fireworks. God's nature is seen in his unspeakable kindness, patience, generosity.

There was once a man who owned a small factory. And with it, he made himself quite a fortune. The wages his workers received were more than fair.

And yet his employees resented the fact that this man drove to work every day in a Lincoln Continental, chauffeur-driven actually, and lived in a magnificent mansion on a hill overlooking the town. Sure, we're getting paid twice as much as all other factory workers in the land, but we don't drive a car like his, chauffeur-driven, and we don't live in a mansion like he has, and our kids don't go to the best schools in the country as his son does. One November day, the economy took a sudden plunge, and in a very short time, millions of workers across the land were unemployed.

Unemployment insurance benefits quickly expired. Blue Cross coverage ran out. The famous soup lines of the Depression of the 30s reappeared again.

But somehow this little factory kept right on chugging along. Not one worker was laid off. Everybody got a paycheck each week.

Somebody wondered, who was buying our product? If factory after factory is closing and businesses are going bankrupt all over the country. But after a while, they just shrugged their shoulders and went back to work. One day, the boss appeared at the factory without his Lincoln Continental.

In fact, he walked and walked every day after that, but his smile was still the same. It was rumored that his son was brought back from university for some strange reason. Then one day, five moving vans pulled up in front of the mansion and emptied out all the fancy furniture and drove off with it.

But the factory kept going and people got their paychecks every week. Then the boss sold the mansion and moved his family to a cheap flat on the lower side of town. That winter, his wife took pneumonia and died.

But his grief was not strong enough to keep him from taking care of business. The factory kept going. People got their paychecks.

His son was now working in the factory. One day, one of the employees came in drunk and stumbled into a conveyor. And in saving that employee's life, the son was killed.

Still the factory stayed open. The employees began to notice that the boss had lost quite a bit of weight and his clothes were rather tattered, his suit was. Surely, said his secretary to him one day, if you can afford to keep this factory open, you can afford to buy yourself a new suit.

I can afford to keep this factory open one more week. Then what will you do? I suppose you'll close the factory, she said. And retire in Florida.

Retire in Florida? With what? You mean you've spent all your money? Yes. Ah. You spent all your money to keep us working.

You've lost your wife, you've lost your son, you've lost your money. Don't you regret it? Of course not. Before the end of the week, a huge order came in bringing with it enough money to keep the factory operating.

But to this very day, there's a division among the employees as to the mystery behind the factory that never closed. Many of them, the majority of them, attributed it to some kind of luck. Only a few knew who it was who paid the price and paid it gladly.

And those who know have never been saved since. For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake, he became poor. So that by his poverty, you might become rich.

For though he was in the form of God, it did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped. But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, and was found in the likeness of man. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

Ever since the Garden of Eden, Satan has been trying to mislead the human race as to what God is really like. He's been trying to get us to be suspicious, untrusting, anxious, full of dread in our attitude toward God. If it thunders, God is angry.

If it lightnings, God is really angry. If the sun comes out after the storm, God has been appeased. But if you want to know what God is like, you don't look at the lightning and the thunder.

The lightning and the thunder and the sunshine and the rain all belong to God. But if you want to know what God is like, you have to look into God's heart. And God's heart is in his son.

This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. This is my beloved son. Listen to him.

And what do you see? When you look at God's son, you see a sacrifice. You see innocence offering itself up for us. You see love.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like she have gone astray.

We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. That's what God's like.

Do we really want to be partakers of the divine nature? If we really want to be partakers of the divine nature so that it comes down and gets hold of our hearts, we must understand that if the divine nature truly possesses our hearts, that each one of us from that point on, and all of us corporately from that point on, becomes together a living sacrifice. So that now our lives are spent, and poured out, and given, even unto death, gladly, out of thanksgiving for him who laid down his life. I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Just as surely as the divine nature in this world becomes a dying sacrifice, so the divine nature in our hearts and bodies becomes a living sacrifice. If we are partakers of the divine nature, then we no longer are living to get, and acquire, and extend our influence, and horn our power.

But now, like God, our purpose, our one purpose, is to give. To pour ourselves out. To spend ourselves, so that we might up-build, and save, and heal, and encourage, and strengthen those around us.

And we do it, not in order to get to heaven, or to build up brownie points, or to sanctify ourselves. We do it because this is our nature. Having seen God's love for us, what else can we do? To present our bodies as a living sacrifice involves the mind and the heart, as Paul says in Romans 12.

And it involves, first of all, that we begin to forgive gladly, as God has forgiven us. So that we take our rights, and our grudges, and the scars that have been put upon us by the wrongs wrought against us by other people, and lay all of them on the altar, and praise God as they go up in the flames and disappear. What a relief to be able to forgive as God has forgiven us.

To present our bodies as a living sacrifice means that we begin to forbear the way God has been forbearing and patient with us. So that we give people a little bit of room. Instead of crowding in on them, and jumping on them, and judging them, we pray for them.

We even endure mistreatment from their hands when we remember the long years we walked on God's goodness, and trampled on his very heart. To present our bodies as a living sacrifice means that now our one purpose in life is to spend ourselves and give ourselves to show God's mercy exactly in the place where we now find ourselves, touching the lives around us with it. When people carry their Bibles around, talk about Jesus, but are stingy, self-conserving, quick to judge, cautious, unwilling to expose themselves to the pain and anguish around them, this means that their vision of Jesus, if they ever had one, has shriveled down to the size of their own withered spirit.

If we carry the nature of God in us, if we really share the divine nature, what else are we here for? What other purpose do we have but to give forth and spend in the doing of mercy right where we are? To give. By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But if anyone has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or in speech, but in deed and in truth.

The test of anything that calls itself Christian, including your life and mine, does it bear the mark of the divine nature? Does it give some evidence that it has been to the cross and been changed? His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us precious and very great promises that through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world through lust and become partakers of the divine nature. The divine nature in this world is a dying sacrifice. The divine nature in our hearts is a living sacrifice.

May God today, right now, refresh our vision of his heart, that seeing what his heart is like, our hearts may break, melt, humble themselves, and become like his. Let's pray. We're asking, Lord Jesus, that you would manifest yourself to us today again, and by the power of the spirit, reveal to us who you are, that seeing you again, afresh today, we may be delivered from our obsession with ourselves, and in your power, mercy, forgiveness, and grace may become the Father's children once again.

We ask it for your mercy's sake, because of your shed blood. Amen.