Self Sacrifice

Transcript

where some of the ideas came from for my class uh today um my myself and and my girl friend sister uh Vanessa um we've been participating or or had been participating in a a free program that's run by some of the Ivy League schools um where you can essentially sign up for a for a free course as a as a auditor so to speak so you don't get the credit for it um but you can you can sit in on the classes and you get the materials and everything so that's kind of neat so we signed up for a a Phil a philosophy course on the um the philosophy of justice and it it tackled uh elements of of moral philosophy and it kind of got the wheels turning a little bit and uh some some of the ideas here are um they sprung from from that course that we were sitting in on and and a couple other resources as well and then I sort of looked at things from a Biblical perspective and and uh I think kind of flushed out some some pretty interesting things

here so I am going to I'm going to start with a story this is a real life story uh that happened in the summer of

1884 so in the summer of 1884 four English Sailors were stranded at Sea in a small Lifeboat in the South Atlantic uh South Atlantic about a thousand miles from land their ship which was called the Minette had gone down in the storm and and they had escaped to the Lifeboat with only two c of preserved turnips and and no fresh water Thomas Dudley was the captain Edwin Stevens the first mate and Edmund Brooks was a a sailor and they were all later called uh men of excellent character the fourth member of the crew was the cabin boy uh whose name was Richard Parker and he was 17 years old and if if any of you have read the uh the book life of pie you might recognize that name from uh one of the characters in that book which was based on this on this true story uh he was an orphan uh and on his first long Voyage at Sea he had signed up against the advice of his friends in the hopefulness of youthful ambition thinking that the journey would make a man of him sadly that was not to be from the Lifeboat the four stranded Sailors watched The Horizon hoping a ship might pass and rescue them for the first three days they ate small rations of turnips on the fourth day they caught a turtle and they subsisted on turtle and the remaining turnips for the next few days then for eight days they ate absolutely nothing uh by now Parker the cabin boy was lying on the in the corner of the Lifeboat um he had drunk sea seawater against the advice of the others and he become ill he appeared to be dying on the 19th day of their ordeal Dudley the captain suggested drawing lots to determine who would die so that the others might live uh Brooks refused so they did not draw Lots the next day uh still no ship in sight Dudley told Brooks to avert his gaze and motioned to Stevens that Parker would be killed Dudley offered a prayer told the boy his time had come and then killed him with a pen knife Brooks emerged from his conscientious objection to share in the gruesome Bounty for four days the three men fed on the body and blood of the cabin boy and then they were rescued Dudley describes their rescue in his diary with a kind of a staggering euphemism he says on the 24th day as we were having our breakfast a ship appeared at last the three survivors were picked up and upon their return to England they were arrested and tried Brooks turned States witness Brook was Brooks was the the one who had Pro protested the the casting of a lots initially and uh dud Dudley and Stevens went to trial they freely confessed that they had killed an eaten Parker and they claimed that they had done so out of necessity the strongest argument for the defense is that given the circumstances it was necessary to kill one person in order to save three had no one been killed and eaten all four would likely have died Parker weakened and Ill was The Logical candidate since he would soon have died anyway and unlike deadle and Stevens he had no dependence his death deprived no one of support and left no grieving wife or children this argument is open to at least two objections first it can be asked whether the benefits of killing the cabin boy taken as a whole really did outweigh the costs even counting the number of lives saved and happiness of the survivors and their families allowing such a killing might have bad consequences for society as a whole for example weakening the norm against murder or increasing people's tendency to take the law in their own hands are making it more difficult for captains to recruit cabin boys secondly even if all things considered the benefits do outweigh the costs uh don't we have a nagging sense that killing and eating a defenseless Cabin Boy is wrong for reasons that go beyond the calculation of social costs and

benefits isn't it wrong to use a human being in this way exploiting his vulnerability taking his life without his consent even if doing so benefits others to anyone appalled by the actions of Dudley and Stevens the first objection seems

tepid uh it accepts the assumption that morality consists in weighing costs and benefits if the killing of the cabin boy is worthy of moral outrage the second objection is more to the point it rejects the idea that the right thing to do is simply a matter of calculating consequences and it suggests rather that morality means something more something to do with the proper way for human beings to treat one another these two ways of thinking about the Lifeboat uh this this um historical case illustrate two rival approaches the first pro approach says the morality of an action depends solely on the consequences it brings about the right thing to do is whatever will produce the best State of Affairs all things considered the second approach says that consequences are not the only thing to care about morally speaking certain duties and rights should command our respect for reasons independent of social consequence so that little blurb that I just shared with you was taken from the moral philosophy course that uh that we were working through so I want to hit a a the pause button on that for for a moment keep that story in mind we will be circling back to it um I want you to hang with me uh for for a little while here as we explore some passages that will kind of help to tie things together so um feel free to look these up as we go but I'll probably go through them relatively quickly and I'll I'll read them out for you um so it's it's entirely up to you so I'm going to start with uh Romans 3 and I'm going to read from 21 to

26 so Romans 3 beginning at verse 21 but now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify this righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe there is no difference between Jew and Gentile for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and all are justified by free excuse me all are Justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that came by Christ Jesus God God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement through the shedding of his blood to be received by faith he did this to demonstrate his righteousness because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who justifies Those Who Have Faith In

Jesus so Paul writes here about God putting forth Christ as a sacrifice of atonement

and Paul could have said something along the lines of um you know God punished Christ for having sin um but he certainly doesn't say that uh he could have had said that Christ death was a substitute for us and he doesn't say that uh either um Paul prescribes the appropriate response to this self-sacrifice and and sort of um ties this into uh the example we were given in the Old Testament um but he ties this into for us in in Romans 12 where he recommends a commitment of reciprocity with Christ Sacrifice by us as

Believers so in Romans 12 the first couple of verses he says therefore I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a Living Sacrifice holy and pleasing to God this is your true and proper worship do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is his good good pleasing and perfect

will righteous self-sacrifice includes obedience in response to God and that is giving our giving or presenting ourselves including our will um to God in response and and certainly against any contrary will of our own so the sacrifice is not just it's not a ritual or an external practice or a demonstration of physical suffering um but rather a spirit of sacrifice

um we have the example of of Jesus in Gethsemane as a model of of righteous self-sacrifice to God in line with Paul's focus on on Jesus's self-giving obedience to God in his in his willing death where we're told in in Phil Philippians

2 just to kind of back up a little further and look at look at the origin of sacrifice the idea of like what is sacrifice in the first place um I'm just going to read from Exodus 3:18 and in one of the earliest sort of mentions um of this sacrifice after the the garden um the the Elders of Israel so this is Exodus

318 the Elders of Israel will listen to you then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him the Lord the god of the Hebrews has met with us let us take a three-day Journey Into the Wilderness to offer

sacrifices so this is the original request that Moses made to Pharaoh for Israel to be set free and I think there's some really interesting parallels here considering we're talking about um Egypt um and and God's uh requirement for them to to leave Egypt and and go and

sacrifice uh the reason was that they might be free to be able to sacrifice to their God and the same principle applies to us this is why God has freed us um from from Egypt recall that Romans 121 charges us with the responsibility once we are free of our slavery to sin uh to be living sacrifices the blessing of our god-given calling makes available to us the opportunity to dedicate our lives in service to him and its potential opens the door to to positive motivation to counterbalance maybe the somewhat negative sense that obligation to Christ may may otherwise seem to impose because he first gives us evidence of his love for us it enables us to believe in him to live by faith uh to to live a life of self-sacrifice and and to glorify

him the just shall live by faith because they know him in his loving character this causes any lingering negative sense or or can cause um not not in every case uh the the negative sense that H that Human Nature has toward being required to keep God's commands to to sort of Fade to the background freeing us to obey from the heart in sincere gratitude and joy

Deuteronomy chapter 8 verses 2 and

3 says remember how the Lord your God LED you all the way in the wilderness these 40 years to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart whether or not you would keep his commands he humbled you causing you to hunger and then feeding you with Mana which neither you nor your ancestors had known to to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the

Lord so there's an example here of the fact that God presented difficulties for the Israelites to face and a good parallel to to show us that the real tests um never come at a at a convenient time so if we're if we're being tested in terms of our our willingness to sacrifice ourselves and to participate in Christ sacrifice um those those tests are not going to come at the at the easy times the more difficult choices seem to come in times of hard hardship when our loyalty is really in question and when it's much easier to to serve

ourselves and and obviously we can connect that to the to the initial story here um however God wants us to sacrifice ourselves

instead Psalm 51 tells us that as a converted Man David understood that an animal sacrifices were really not doing anything other than setting a pattern certainly they were tutors to those who understood and but the Israelites could sacrifice thousand animals and not get a thing out of it as David understood he he writes for you do not desire sacrifice or else I would give it you do not Delight in burnt offering the sacrifices of God are a broken Spirit a broken and a contrite

heart that really costs us something what David is talking about a person sacrifices of himself when human nature is being cut away when by the exercise or the the exercise of his will due to Faith determines not to do something or to do something against every fiber of his being uh even as Jesus did by the force of will and through faith by relying on God um by dedicating ourselves in servitude to him um we can make ourselves to to to do something just to stay in line with him when when every part of our natural selves is telling us it's going to be much easier for us if we go this other

way it says these oh God you will not

despise okay so having just kind of scratched the surface on the idea of um sacrifice and self-sacrifice uh I'm sure you're seeing some connection with the beginning story but I'm gonna tie it in a lot more as we go along um I'd like to look at another real life moral dilemma as well but first I want to examine an ethical belief system that influence both our our opening story and the story I'm going to share next um and I think it also has a huge influence on our modern society and certainly for myself I can speak for myself but I think I can speak for a lot of us um that this is a philosophy that is really pervasive um and is is difficult to to avoid in our our modern society particularly in the Western World um and this is the the philosophy of of

utilitarianism um so for for those who don't know um utilitarianism is is an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on outcomes so it's a it's a form of consequentialism and it holds that the most ethical choice is the one that will produce the greatest good for the greatest number essentially it amounts to that so it kind of doesn't sound bad right off the bat um but we might see some flaws when we start digging into it a little bit so one of the one of the big issues with it is that in order to be able to assess what the right thing to do is in a in a given situation since it's based on outcomes we must have some way of knowing what the possible outcomes are going to be um since we're not Clairvoyant we can't see the future we don't have all the factors at all times and we are fallible uh this opens us up to Major possibil for miscalculation um and mistakes and we can't factor in um anything else that that that might come

along this philosophy also requires us to be able to evaluate what is the greatest good for the greatest number and in order to be able to determine what is the greatest good or the greatest benefit we have to have a way of quantifying and qualifying degrees of of good and less good um so there has to be some sort of um univers L accepted measurement system uh to be able to to quantify the the the various Goods um for a

society this uh as you you're probably already kind of thinking about this piece of it um what this ends up doing as well because it depends on people's views of what is a benefit and what is not a benefit in society um that it's it creates a sort of fluid or relative morality since the right or wrong thing to do changes Chang based on other variables it changes on the the thoughts of the time it changes on can change on the on the weather can change based on where the income is is distributed um all kinds of different things so it creates a little bit of a catch22 since it makes it impossible to quantify in certain terms therefore what is good and what is evil or what is less good and therefore what is better or worse for the

majority so kind of digging into all those flaws and and these are accepted flaws of of the philosophy um we might think it's kind of easy to avoid to a certain extent but I I I think that we would be be wrong if we think that um it is absolutely pervasive in in our modern world basically the whole idea of democracy as a political system is based on utilitarian ideals the the greatest good for the greatest number um Wars throughout history have been justified through the lens of achieving or defending the greatest good for the greatest number atrocities have been committed in the name of protecting the majority from perceived dangers of a a minority or a smaller group um and it's easy to fall into this way of thinking on everyday minor things as well um so for example the the thought you know maybe this thing that I'm doing is wrong but you know what it's not hurting anyone that's that's kind of a consequentialist um form of thinking

uh it can come up even just when we're trying to figure out how to aot our time so if we're looking at you know maybe this will benefit uh or or this will get out to a larger number of people rather than me spending all this time trying to help this one person who is maybe really a difficult person to work with um so we're looking at sort of what the the greater number of people who are affected by it there's it can come up in all kinds of different ways and it's I think it's really

pervasive

so just to dig in a little bit further on this and compare it to I guess what we could call um biblical

ethics utilitarianism is a purely consequentialist moral theory where other kinds of moral consideration matter only to the extent that their adoption has good or bad

consequences scriptural ethics on the other hand routinely make use of Concepts relating to duty and virtuous character independent or uh independence of possible

consequence so we have numerous um biblical texts and and particularly in the Old Testament that speak about ethical rules being established by God's Commandments and about the importance of obedience to God's laws routinely acts are portrayed as evil without any reference to their consequences uh often we're told that an action is evil and we don't even know we don't know the rest of the story we don't know if it led to anything um bad or not so it wasn't clearly important for for God to get that across to us in Romans 3:8 Paul seems to take it for granted uh that it's problematic to reason let us do evil so that good may

come so that's a pretty good argument I think against the uh the idea of

consequentialism and if it seems like there's a a Chasm between uh the Bible and the utilitarian ethic forgiveness can serve as a as a particular particularly clear casee and point for utilitarians uh acting wrongly means acting in a way that reduces the total benefit to a society or a community uh one can thus act wrongly but one can't necessarily wrong an individual per se uh and without such directed duties the Central Christian idea of forgiveness is hard to incorporate since utilitarians do not con uh consider duties to be about right relations between individuals um except maybe as it applies to Justice and and part of that would be tied to precedent and making sure that the society as a whole has rules to follow um rather than really trying to sort out the the issues between two individuals um but rather it's it's about the relation of the individual to the benefit um so forgiveness would not be a practice in which a wrong party has the moral power really to wave rights uh for compensation or retribution um or to eliminate guilt

in other words there's no room for forgiveness and if we if we kind of um extrapolate that a little bit

um we think of it in terms of if if the moral right under the util utilitarian idea is whatever will benefit the most people the most then if we

um if if we do something that that causes a a benefit to a smaller number of people or causes a a deficit to larger group um the right thing then for that larger group to do in response is whatever benefits the greater ho again so in What scenario is it going to benefit the the greater whole to forgive the individual who who committed the first

crime another point that connects us back to the the idea of self-sacrifice is that the the Bible references The Familiar concept of going beyond the Call of Duty

um so going above and beyond the letter of the law and really adhering to the spirit of the law and you know Jesus talks about how basically under the Old Law it says Thou shalt not murder but he he implores us to to not even um have that have that hate for for a brother it's it's that it's that the spirit of the

law and it's it's acknowledged both in in the the scriptural teaching as well as in common sort of moral intuition

the Bible seems to draw a contrast between merely avoiding wrongdoing uh and going above and beyond uh and sort of the minimum

calling when Jesus criticizes the legalism of the Pharisees he contrasts it with Justice and and mercy and faithfulness in in Matthew 23 um reminiscent of similar contrast to the Old Testament um in in Micah 6 for example and perhaps most pointedly in this case uh in 1 Corinthians 13 uh 1 Corinthians 13:3 sees something lacking in a kind of altruism that gives all possessions to the poor but doesn't exhibit the virtue of Love um so this seems to indicate that the result of the actions uh does not necessarily make the action itself a moral

one now it's interesting to to look at at consequentialism in the Bible because despite all of these sort of non-utilitarian features that I've just shared with you um there are many cases where consequences do have of course a role in determining the rightness of of actions so there are some there's some interesting examples in the Bible um many key cases such as for example the the prohibition of um killing or the injunction to help the needy uh where clearly the consequences are considered and the relevance of these consequences may be most obvious in in cases where rules seem to be approvingly broken uh so you know they're they're spoken of as as righteous people for example um when they have broken some of these these rules God has put in place in order to affect a better consequence uh so the the Egyptian midwives who lied to the pharaoh to save Hebrew infants are praised um David and his men break an explicit commandment of the Torah by eating the showbread when while fleeing Saul

uh which Jesus uses as an argument later to to defend his his disciples plucking Grain on the Sabbath and it's notable in that case uh that the good consequence in question here is is nothing more than essentially a satiating

hunger uh we know of course that Jesus heals on the Sabbath numerous times and uh and even tells a healed man to carry his sleeping mat he criticizes the Pharisees disapproval of his actions by appealing to a verse from Hosea uh that again hearkens back back to what we read in Psalms before from David um that I desire mercy and not

sacrifice in fact a strict and um superficial focus on rule observance is given uh really critical treatment throughout both the Old and New

Testament

however love is at the center of biblical morality so while love does fall in line in some in some regards to utilitarian ethics love goes beyond promoting the welfare of of loved ones and of those around them in addition even if um if Universal love is is directed at at individuals as

well and so therefore an ethic with love and self-sacrifice at its Center is really hard to reconcile to to utilitarianism and there's some some big gaps

there it's interesting to note that many attempts to explain why certain destructive actions of God in the Bible like the flood of uh you know the the flood or the um annihilation of the Canaanites for example

um maybe from from certain perspective from a temporal perspective in some cases it's hard to to say you know that was morally right um if and we can sort of fall in some cases into consequentialist reasoning um so the actions will be justified and compatible with God's benevolence because ultimately they had good effects such as stopping the spread of evil um but the Bible's attention to consequence doesn't make it uh doesn't give it a consequentialist Outlook um and the distinguishing feature of consequentialism is the exclusive attention to consequences um which makes it susceptible to change as the perception of good evolves in a society for example furthermore and this is the big key and I'll I'll hammer this a little bit later as well any seeming consequentialism in the Bible is based on God's omniscience rather than on our best guesses so when we're talking about God making a um a decision or or taking action based on what the consequences are going to be it's entirely different than when we try to do so ourselves because we don't know the end from the beginning and we are not omnicient and uh

omnipresent so I told you I had share another real life story and I'm going to uh launch into that here and there was actually some of you may have seen there was a movie made about this this story um true story that happened in in

2005 um there was a a special forces team made up of petty officer Marcus lutrell and three other US Navy Seals uh and they set out on a secret reconnaissance mission in Afghanistan near the Pakistan Border in search of a Taliban leader who was a close associate of Osama bin Laden according to intelligence reports their target commanded 140 to 150 heavily armed Fighters and was staying in a village in the forbidding mountainous region shortly after the special Force's team took up a position on a Mountain Ridge overlooking a village two Afghan Farmers with about a 100 bleeding goat goats happened upon them with them was a boy of about 14 years old

the Afghan farmers were unarmed the American soldiers trained their rifles on them motioned them to sit on the ground and then tried to decide what to do on the one hand the goat herds appeared to be unarmed civilians on the other hand letting them go would would run the risk that they would inform the Taliban of the presence of the US

soldiers as the Four soldiers contemplated their options they thought about tying them up and they didn't they didn't have any rope or any means to do so um they they looked at some other options and they basically determined uh that they they they really only had uh two choices one one was to kill them and one was to let them go

free one of lr's comrades argued for killing the goat herds what he said was we're on active duty Behind Enemy Lines sent here by our senior commanders we have a right to do everything we can to save our own lives the military decision is obvious to turn them loose would be wrong the trell who was in charge was more torn in my soul I knew he was right he wrote in retrospect we could not possibly turn them loose but my trouble is I have another soul my Christian soul and it was crowding in on me something kept whispering in the back of my mind it would be wrong to execute these unarmed Men In Cold Blood in the end his conscience didn't allow him to kill the curs he cast the deciding vote um so there was four of them one voted for one abstained or excuse me uh yeah one abstained one had voted in in favor of letting them go so he was the deciding vote uh it was a vote that he came to regret about an hour and a half after they released the goat herds the Four soldiers found themselves surrounded by 80 Taliban fighters armed with AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades in the firefight that followed all three of L tril's comrades were killed the Taliban fighters also shot down a US helicopter that sought to rescue the seal the sealit killing all 16 soldiers on

board Latrell who was severely injured managed to survive by falling down the mountain side and crawling seven miles to the nearby Village and in an interesting turn um that I think illustrates more to the point um the residents of that Village then actually risked their own lives to to save him and then he he was eventually rescued in retrospect trell condemned his own vote not to kill the goat hers he said it was the stupidest most southern fried lamebrain decision I ever made in my life I must have been out of my mind I had actually cast a vote which I knew could sign our death warrant at least that's how I look on that now the deciding vote was mine and it will haunt me till the rest of my

days so returning to Romans 12 again I I think there's a a very nice contrast here to to this the thinking we're hearing from him and again I think it's it was it's interesting to see his philosophy now looking back on this clearly taking a consequentialist view of this he's saying that it turned out this was the wrong thing to do because people died um if we look at the what the villagers did um he may be viewing that as you know they they risked um their lives and they risked Calamity in order to help him but again it worked out so maybe that that was why was the right thing to do in their

case so I want to I want to use Romans 12 for some contrast uh we'll pick up at verse

n love must be sincere hate what is evil cling to what is good be devoted to one another in love honor one another above yourselves never be lacking in Zeal but keep your spir spiritual fervor say serving excuse me serving the lord be joyful in Hope patient in Affliction faithful in prayer share with the Lord's people who are in need practice Hospitality bless those who persecute you bless and do not curse Rejoice with those who Rejoice mourn with those who mourn live in harmony with one another do not be proud but be willing to associate with people of low position do not be conceited do not repay anyone evil for evil be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone if it is possible as far as it depends on you live at peace with everyone do not take revenge my dear friends but leave room for God's Wrath for it is written it is mine to avenge I will repay says the Lord on the contrary if your enemy is hungry feed him if he is thirsty give him something to drink in doing this he will Heap burning coals on his

head I I think it's clear that God does not prescribe consequential morality in scripture um we have all kinds of examples in the Bible people who made difficult decision difficult decisions for righteousness sake and there and those decisions led to hardship and suffering and I'm sure we can all think of a different example of

that in some sense it can be argued that ultimately we are instructed by God to act morally in a way that does work towards the greatest cumulative good so for example if we turn back a couple of pages to Romans

8 um starting at verse 28 we're told we know that all things work together for good to them that love God to them who are the called according to his purpose for whom he did Forno he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many Brethren moreover whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also Justified whom he justified them he also glorified what shall we then say to these things if God be for us who can be against us he that spar not his own son but delivered him up for us how shall he not uh how shall he not with him also freely give us all things and and here we are by the way as an aside back at the idea of

self-sacrifice um I'm not going to delve into the predestination aspect here I think that's a topic for another day um but we are told here that our moral decisions are directed by a greater final cause um just as proponents of utilitarian ethic would argue however as I mentioned before the major difference is that the actual directive as to what is right and what is wrong in a given moment comes from our creator as opposed to some kind of best guess on our part based on unknowable

variables um Matthew 10 I'm going to read Matthew 10 ver

32 through about

39 whoever acknowledges me before others I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven but whoever disowns me before others I will disown before my Father in Heaven do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to Earth I did not come to bring peace but a sword for I have come to turn a man against his father a daughter against her mother a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law a Man's enemies will be the members of his own household anyone who loves the father or mother more than me is not worthy of me anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me whoever finds their life will lose it and whoever loses their life for my sake will find

it I I wanted to read these verses to illustrate something that I think that that that I struggle with uh and that is that the the sacrifice of Christ for us can mean certainly both the if for the the Forgiveness part um and can represent Christ's own example of self-denial and then losing his life for greater purpose um which is really to to Great personal cost uh Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18 for the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing but to those who are being saved it is the power of

God I I think this second part of it can be kind of hard to swallow sometimes so we we have an example of complete surrender which which we are called to imitate um and I think if if we're if we're not following that uh we can easily become tolerant of sin or or increasingly human centered and less inclined to actions that might involve um great discomfort or or

inconvenience we can appreciate what what Christ sacrifice means for us while simultan simultaneously boing at the cost to follow in his

footsteps uh but for those of us who have answered God's God's calling that message an example of total surrender of of carrying whatever is placed upon us until we die uh is is powerful and consider the power unleashed when Jesus surrenders to this completely um we know that God not only raised him back to life but he has put all things under

him following that example of of self-sacrifice is um what what could have allowed we're told it could have allowed the Corinthians to be reconciled to each other uh the the carnal mind says that the surrender is folly because it creates a vulnerability or the possibility of loss or or great hardship but the same carnal mind is blind to the reality that God is on his throne overseeing the outcome um he he uses his power on our behalf and and he calls us to trust him with our

lives uh the message of sacrifice is not just about forgiveness of sins it's also about our response to God um after we've been forgiven what we give of

ourselves I want to Circle back to the first story that we had so the the four guys on the Lifeboat um and I I thought this was really cool when I when I read through the the result of the trial um I'm not sure that it would go the same way today but I was impressed with the jury of

1884 um so it's it's pretty neat I'm going to share you the the results of the trial here so this is um The Dudley and Stevens the the two accused uh the defense argued on behalf of them as

follows the facts found on the special verdict show that the prisoners were not guilty of murder at the time when they killed Parker but killed him under the pressure of necessity necessity will excuse an act which would otherwise be a crime the law as to compulsion by necessity is further explained uh has precedent in the case of two dring men on a on a plank large enough to support only one and one thrusting the other off the Survivor could not be subjected to legal punishment in the American case of the United States versus homes the proposition that a passenger on board a vessel may be thrown overboard to save the others is sanctioned the essence of the crime of murder is intention and here the attention of the prisoners was only to preserve

lives here's the

verdict from these facts stated with the cold Precision of a special verdict it appears sufficiently that the prisoners were were indeed subject to terrible temptation to sufferings which might break down the bodily power of the strongest man and try the conscience of the best but nevertheless this is clear that the prisoners put to death a weak and unoffending boy upon the chance of preserving their own lives by feeding upon his flesh and blood after he was killed and with a certainty of depriving him of any possible chance of survival the verdict finds in terms that if the men had not fed upon the body of the boy they probably would not have survived and that the boy being in a much weaker condition was likely to have died before them they might possibly have been picked up the next day by a passing ship or they might possibly not have been picked up at all in either case it's obvious that the killing of the boy would have been unnecessary and profitless act in these

cases it's found by the verdict that the boy was incapable of resistance and in fact made none and it is not even suggested that his death was due to any violence on on his part uh attempted against or even so much as feared by those who killed him in other words self-defense is not an

option there remains to be considered the real question in the case whether killing under the circumstances set forth in the verdict be or not be murder under the law and this is where I think it gets really good uh temptation to the ACT which existed here was not what the law has ever called necessity to preserve one's life is generally speaking a duty but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it war is full of instances in which it is a man's Duty not to live but to die for those around him the duty in case of shipwreck of a captain to his crew of the crew to the passengers of men to women and children these duties impose on men the moral necessity not of the preservation but of the sacrifice of their lives for others from which it is to be hoped men will never shrink it is not correct therefore to say that there is any absolute or unqualified necessity to preserve one's life it is enough in a Christian country to remind ourselves of the great example uh whom we profess to follow it is not needful to point out the awful danger of admitting the principle which has been contended for who is to be the judge of this sort of necessity by what measure is the comparative value of lives to be measured is it to be strength or intellect or or what in this case the weakest the youngest the most unresisting was chosen was it more necessary to kill him than one of the grown men the answer must be no it is not suggested that in this particular G case the Deeds were devilish but it is quite plain that such a principle once admitted might be made the legal cloak uh the legal cloak for unbridled passion and atrocious crime a man has no right to declare temptation to be an excuse though he might himself have yielded to it it is therefore our duty to declare that the prisoners act in this case was was willful murder murder that the facts as stated in the ver in the verdict are no legal justification of the homicide and to say that in our unanimous opinion the prisoners are upon this special verdict guilty of

murder um so at the time um the the sentence or excuse me the the the result of of murder um was was to be put to death um however that the court because of the special circumstances um sort of went back on that and and they commuted the sentence to six months imprisonment um for those two two

gentlemen so circling back to some of the stuff from from Romans 12 that we looked at um Paul's exhortation is especially interesting in in light of what precedes it I think chapter 11 concludes a lengthy dissertation on the sort of doctrinal foundation of Christianity showing the central importance of faith and Grace

instruction in the pr practical aspect of of Christian Living begins with chapter 12 and the two sections are linked by the word

therefore so Paul's demonstrating that the way we are to live is insep inseparably bound to what we believe faith without works is dead and works without a correct belief system is Vanity wrong thinking uh essentially cannot lead to to right

doing

uh if if we drink in the spirit of of Paul's doctrinal teaching in the first 11 chapters then we are called to present our bodies as living sacrifices and to renew the spirit of our minds so outwardly and inwardly um we're on our way to God's ideal for human conduct and and in in so doing are sacrificing ourselves for for the greater

good Paul uses the metaphor of sacrifice throughout verse one of chapter 12 to reinforce both similarities to uh with and and contrasts between Israel's old Covenant sacrificial system and um and our sacrifice or or the Christian sacrifice of of our lives and service to God under the old Covenant the offerer gift was presented to God and became God's Property similarly the gift of our life is set apart for God to use as he determines when we are bought with a price we belong to ourselves no

longer we're told uh that the old the old test sacrifices brought produced a sweet smell that do that God declares in Leviticus um in a number of different places to be a fragrant Aroma to his nostrils in the same way the gift of our life is acceptable to God Paul says that giving our lives is the way in this way is reasonable is of sound judgment is moderate sensible and some of the modern translations actually say

rational the outward acts of a Son of God spring logically from what has changed in the Inner Man our minds are being renewed and therefore we are um submitting to God's will rather than our own and and certainly than to the to sort of the Conformity of the insanity of of this

world the last word in in verse one is service and it's uh as important as any words in the verse um and in this context it describes the service not of a of a domestic slave um but but of a priest in in complete self-surrender before performing his duties before God's altar we're told that in 1 Peter 2 it it means that we must first of all be priests by our inward Consecration and then we have to lay our outward life on the altar in God's

service almost from the beginning of the Bible sacrifice is one of the great key words of of God's whole whole plan and purpose God clearly alludes to to Christ sacrifice as early as Genesis 3 um and the first animal sacrifice occurs in genes genis 4 so this principle of sacrifice is woven into the fabric of of every every

book um one of the keys is sacrifices are inherently costly to to The Giver or there is no real sacrifice in the offering um David explains in in 2 Samuel

24:24 um he uh he responds to Arona no but I will surely buy it from you for a price nor will I buy burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing Jesus amplifies this principle with a statement um where he says greater not love has no man than this than has no man than this than to lay down one's life for his

friends uh it requires a decision that will from time to time bring intense pressure on us to control ourselves against our strong drives and and and go with

God if we do however um God's promises to us are are powerful and we can be freed from not only from our from our nature freed from Egypt Egypt to to choose to live a life of servitude to God um but also freed from the sort of ethical muck um that we can see otherwise where we we're I think it's a scary place to be when we're trying to figure out for ourselves what what's right and what's wrong based on variables that we have no control over and no knowledge of um if we turn to God and we follow um what he has put out for us it it really sort of clears a lot of the the greyness up and and um I think can provide great

comfort so I'm just going to conclude by reading uh a few verses here from Romans chapter 8 that I think wrap things up

well Romans 8 starting at uh verse

33 who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect it is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth it is Christ that died y rather than that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or Peril or sword as it is written for thy sake we are killed all the day long we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter nay in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our lord