Sacrifice
Sacrament Meeting Talk, September 21, 2014
Based on "Sacrifice" by Dallin H. Oaks, April 2012 General Conference.
Introduction:
What do you think is the greatest thing to ever happen in your life? Please reflect for a minute. Was it the day you were married, or the day your first child was born? Or maybe the day you finally got an iphone, or when the 7th book in the Harry Potter series was released? Now expand that out to think of the greatest thing ever to happen in human history. The day the US gained its freedom? The day slavery ended in the US? Or maybe when WWII ended? What about the discovery of antibiotics? Or the invention of chocolate?
All of those things were great, but there is a right answer to this question. Elder McConkie said that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ was the “most transcendent of all events from creation’s dawn to the endless ages of eternity." Let me translate that to plain English. In other words, the greatest event ever to happen on this Earth was when somebody gave up something that they dearly loved for another. A sacrifice was the greatest thing to ever happen.
Doctrine of sacrifice; what does The Lord require?
Sacrifice is a part of the Lord's plan. Just as Christ sacrificed for us, we should emulate him and offer our own sacrifices.
Some have sacrificed everything
Some people have sacrificed everything, as Christ did. When we visited the Colosseum in Rome, we saw a cross there on the floor of the colosseum, placed in honor of the Christians who were fed to wild animals and murdered in other ways near that place. In those days believers in Christ truly had to give up everything.
Another example was the Willie & Martin Handcart companies. They suffered for weeks of cold and hunger. So many of them lost loved ones. One of the most touching stories is of a couple (Sarah Franks and George Padley) who were engaged to be married. Several other couples were married on the ship from England, but they wanted to wait until they reached zion, perhaps to be sealed. They spoke frequently of the family they would have in Zion and were the company's love birds. But along the way George fell ill and died due to illness and hunger and never made it to the valley.
All who crossed the plains sacrificed, even if they did not give their lives. Sarah Rich told of her feelings as she was left alone when her husband was called away on a mission. "This truly was a trying time for me as well as for my husband; but duty called... and knowing that we were obeying the will of The Lord, we felt to sacrifice our own feelings in order to help establish the work... of helping to build up the Kingdom of God on the earth." (emphasis added). I like that phrase "sacrifice our own feelings."
To learn to love The Lord we need to sacrifice for Him.
Fortunately, most of us are not asked to give our lives. Elder Oaks said, "Many Christians have voluntarily given sacrifices motivated by faith in Christ and the desire to serve Him. Some have chosen to devote their entire adult lives to the service of the Master. This noble group includes those in the religious orders of the Catholic Church and those who have given lifelong service as Christian missionaries in various Protestant faiths. Their examples are challenging and inspiring, but most believers in Christ are neither expected nor able to devote their entire lives to religious service." In other words, it is supposed to be like this. We are not expected to join a convent and spend every moment in prayer. The Lord wants you to enjoy your life and raise your family and in the midst of that happy experience, to also sacrifice by learning to put Him first while not running faster than you have strength.
I think that it is important to think about this for a moment now, especially for those of you (and I won't mention which gender this tends to be) who will hear this talk and beat yourselves up because you can't sew all of your children's clothes from scratch, and have home baked bread ready for your children when they leave for school each day, and keep every square inch of your house sparkly clean, and make the scrap book to document each important event in your children's lives, and carve an ice sculpture to decorate the tables at the ward party, and so on and so on... But more seriously, there are many good and important things that are asked of you and you have many family responsibilities both temporal and spiritual, home/visiting teaching, callings, community service, scouts, YM/YW activities, primary lessons, work, etc... We all should regret that we can't do more to serve The Lord, but we need to remember that those sacrifices should be a part of our lives, not replace our lives.
So what does The Lord expect of us normal people?
Elder Oaks said, "For most followers of Christ, our sacrifices involve what we can do on a day-to-day basis in our ordinary personal lives." Many of the sacrifices that we make come about because our church has no paid clergy. We each are called to lead and serve and carry the load of numerous church meetings, programs and activities. If you think about it, yes our prophet and general authorities and church headquarters do a lot, but most of the work that keeps God's kingdom moving forward on the Earth is done by us!
That is a great part of the Lord's plan, but the price is that Bishops may spend all day Sunday at the church, and many other days during the week, Stake presidencies may rarely have a Sunday or a Thursday night at home, Relief society presidencies may see all of their time evaporate as they care for those in need or resolve problems, Elders quorum presidents are regularly called to scramble to organize the brethren for service, and so on...
One sacrifice in which we are all involved is home and visiting teaching.
To some of us this can be difficult - to give of our time to visit another when we have many things to do, or things that we would prefer to do. Do you have to miss football games, or time to develop your hobbies, or time with friends or family in order to home teach?
At the same time, there are undoubtedly others here who feel that it is no sacrifice at all to home teach. They enjoy the chance to visit and uplift others or to reach out to those who have strayed. Are those people crazy? Do they have some weird personality quirk that makes them like strange things, just like some people like to burn themselves with the hot sauce every time they go to a Mexican restaurant? Or could it be that sacrifice brings blessings and no matter what sacrifice we give we will eventually see that it is a blessing if we can see with spiritual eyes? Or, to return to our hot sauce analogy, is it that hot sauce really is an important part of life and the whole world is missing out on something truly great. What joy they could have if they would only devote the time it takes to acquire a taste for it.
Is it really a sacrifice?
In researching for this talk I found that I had been asked to give a talk on this subject about 12 years ago. In that talk I focused on all of the blessings that one can get when you sacrifice. For example, in Matt. 19:29 The Lord promised: "And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life." Imagine that, a hundred times. Next time you feel down at having to give up the house of your dreams, go count a hundred others that you would take as your reward in Heaven! President Hinckley said, “It is not a sacrifice to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is never a sacrifice when you get back more than you give. It is an investment,…a greater investment than any…It’s dividends are eternal and everlasting.” (Teachings, 567-68, quoted in Ensign, May 2001, pg 64—Carol B. Thomas.)
But, when the moment comes that we are called to make a sacrifice it will be mostly pain and uncertainty. It will be hard to hold on to that shadow of faith that everything will work out. The sacrifices we will be called to make will tear at our heart strings and, although we might feel the Lord's approval instantly, it may take many, many years before the expected blessings arrive. We may not ever see them in this life. That is when our faith will be tried! At those moments hopefully we can hold on to the Lord’s promise that he will reward us hundredfold!
Christ’s Sacrifice
As I've prepared this talk, I've been struck by the thought that maybe the greatest thing to ever happen was not that somebody got a blessing, although blessings always accompany sacrifice. The greatest thing ever to happen was that The Lord was willing to give all to sacrifice for us. Likewise we must be willing to sacrifice even when the blessings are slow to come.
I wonder what Christ's sacrifice was like? Elder Bateman has described Christ's sacrifice NOT as taking on a large, faceless, nameless mass of sin, but an event where Christ was faced with a long line of people. We don't know how long it took, and our minds can't understand how God can fit an eternity in the space of a few hours, but I can only imagine how long that would have taken. At one point perhaps I came through that line and Christ looked over my sins, and the pain that they caused and took on suffering for the consequences all of my sins. I wonder how heavy the load was that he carried just for me? And then after me another person, and then another, and on and on millions, billions, maybe almost a trillion times. He had the power to surrender his life, to die and have the suffering end, but he chose not to. He chose to continue to drink from that bitter cup until it was empty. Sacrifice is an important part of the gospel plan and we should each expect to make sacrifices like this, to follow in the Savior's footsteps.
The sacrifices that really count will not be easy.
We might each be willing to sacrifice our lives to save a child who has wandered in front of a speeding car, or to do some other great deed. But it could be that the sacrifice that is asked of us will be far less glamorous and far more lasting.
It could be to leave a villain's punishment to The Lord and forgive. A story was told in conference a few years ago of some teenagers who were out having a good time and threw a turkey out the window of their car. That turkey went into the windshield of an oncoming car and the woman driving suffered terrible injuries requiring plastic surgery, therapy and months of suffering and pain. When it came time for the trial she chose to forgive the boys who had harmed her, knowing that they didn't mean for things to come out as they did.
Or your sacrifice could be to suffer long with a parent or family member who is ill.
Your sacrifice might be to give up dreams of family, friends, or marriage, or career to remain faithful to The Lord. Elder Oaks told of one such example:
"Many years ago this conference heard of a young man who found the restored gospel while he was studying in the United States. As this man was about to return to his native land, President Gordon B. Hinckley asked him what would happen to him when he returned home as a Christian. “My family will be disappointed,” the young man answered. “They may cast me out and regard me as dead. As for my future and my career, all opportunity may be foreclosed against me.” “Are you willing to pay so great a price for the gospel?” President Hinckley asked. Tearfully the young man answered, “It’s true, isn’t it?” When that was affirmed, he replied, “Then what else matters?” That is the spirit of sacrifice among many of our new members.""
To all of the young men or those who will later be young men, you have been asked to sacrifice a tenth of the first years of your life to serve The Lord. Those of us who have served missions have thought that time more of a blessing than a sacrifice, but it is NO small thing to give up two years in the prime of your life to work in the Lord's service.
Elder Hales said, "In the temple we are prepared to and promise to live the law of consecration. Able young men begin to live this law by seeking a mission call--giving a tithing of the first years of their lives in the full-time service of the Lord. That sacrifice strengthens them to go forward to the highest covenant in life-- to be sealed in the temple and begin an eternal family." (Stand Strong in Holy Places, Hales, Apr. 2013) What better way to prepare to be a father, mother, husband or wife than to learn to sacrifice for The Lord and for others?
Another thing that some of us are called to sacrifice is some of our independence so we can submit to the teachings of the church on a difficult topic (for example gay marriage or women and the priesthood). These things may conflict with our personal or political views. Usually we will come to see the Lord's perspective in time, but many of us may have doubts that will go unanswered until the next life.
The call to sacrifice might also come when someone is mean to us, or when we are asked to love and serve someone we don't particularly like. One challenge here is that if we do our duty well and truly love that person, then our actions will be out of genuine caring for that person, not as some noble sacrifice for God. The world may laugh at us and ask why we should be kind to someone who deserves a piece of our mind, or how we can stand being a friend to that person, or they may even think that we get along with them only because we are rotten inside as well.
A sister recently shared a powerful testimony of sacrifice in the Ensign. While on her mission to Argentina she felt that her life was just how it should be. College was going great and she looked forward to going home, graduating, marrying and all that would come in her life. But then everything fell apart when she became ill and was sent home early, diagnosed with an uncurable heart disorder. She said, "I thought about my future and wondered, “Why me? Why did this have to happen?” I felt that my desires and plans had been good, and I didn’t understand why I had to undergo a trial that changed those plans.
Weeks turned to months, months turned to years, and her health remained poor. But her faith saw her through. She said, "Through the years, however, I began to see that while this was not the future I had anticipated, it was exactly the life God had planned for me." She related her experience to a stone quarry near the Kirtland temple. She said, "Today when people visit the stone quarry, they can see the Kirtland Temple in all its glory just down the road. The early Saints did not have that privilege. Their sacrifice and work were done without the end result, the finished temple, in sight. They likely could not envision that this temple would be the first of hundreds that would fill the earth and bring eternal blessings to God’s children all over the world. They saw only the tools in their hands and the thousands of pounds of rock that needed to be removed. Yet their faith was strong, and they [pressed forward]" (Faith in God’s Plan for Me, Ensign, July 2014)
So I have just listed example after example of difficult sacrifices. This is really starting to be a downer of a talk, isn't it? But I wanted to emphasize today that you WILL be called on to make heart wrenching, difficult, painful sacrifices. Are you prepared to follow Christ's example and offer a sacrifice even when it seems that there is no way this could work out for good? The trick is, that as hard as it may seem there truly are great blessings awaiting us if we continue faithful. To the pioneers it might have seemed like just suffering, just day after day of hunger and loss, but what they did has become a symbol to us and inspired millions to be a little better. And so it is with every sacrifice.
Conclusion:
Someone (Doug Walker, "Faith") once wrote a song about a little girl named Faith whose most prized possession in all the world was a string of shiny plastic pearls. She loved to wear them and loved how rich and important she felt playing dress ups or going out in those shiny pearls. Of all of her toys, these were what she treasured most. One night at bedtime her father came to her and asked her, "Will you give me your pearls?" "No, no, not my pearls," Faith said, "how about my teddy instead." But her father assured her that he loved her and that it was ok and he tucked her in to bed. A lot of time passed and though Faith loved her Father she couldn't give up her favorite thing in this whole world. Then one night Faith came to her father and said through her tears, "Daddy these are for you." 'As she let go of her little treasure, he was crying too. And as he took, those worn plastic pearls, he placed around her neck a beautiful strand of genuine pearls that he had saved just for his sweet Faith.' The song ends with the following line: "With all the world may have in store, He waits with so much more. Your Father loves you so it is ok to give up what you hold with Faith.
It says in Matt 16:24-25 "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."
Have you been working to save your life? Do the sacrifices that you are asked to make seem too hard to bear? Could it be that you are holding back a sacrifice that The Lord has asked of you? Could you find it within yourself to make the offering that He is asking of you and trust that The Lord will repay you bounteously?
I hope that we can all have the faith to mimic the Lord's sacrifice. When hard times come I hope we will remember that he also faced very difficult times, yet he chose to go forward and give up everything for us and that was the greatest thing ever to happen. I know that his plan is the only path to happiness, and even though I don't understand everything, I try to trust him. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
