SACRIFICE FOR THE UPSIDE-DOWN KINGDOM

This summer, the Upside-Down Kingdom wove its way through communities across the country. Each Thursday over 5 weeks, we wanted to remind you of a few aspects of this Kingdom that we hope you will continue to talk about and live into long after this summer’s mission trip.

 

 

I’m a bit amazed by my friend Rhyan. She and I went to the same high school in the same small city with the same people. I ended up getting a job in Minneapolis, where I volunteer at a youth group, attend graduate school at night, often hang out at restaurants with friends and drive a couple hours back home on holidays. Rhyan moved much farther away to Haiti and fell in love with the people there. She moved in, adopted children, frequently helps those in need and rarely gets to visit her family back in the U.S. She has endured illness, held babies who won’t live through the night and relied on the gifts of others to make each day possible.

 

Rhyan sacrifices the benefits of living in America every day so that she is able to be part of what God is doing in Haiti. I am certain there are days Rhyan misses her friends and family in the States, days she wishes for the ease of shopping at Target, and days she yearns to escape the heaviness of death and poverty and brokenness on her doorstep. Yet, Rhyan continues to sacrifice because she has found a place to participate in God’s Kingdom.

 

The sacrifice Rhyan is experiencing is nothing new to the Kingdom. In fact, Jesus tells two very short back-to-back stories about what sacrifice for the Kingdom is like. Read them slowly, catching every detail.

 

Read Matthew 13:44–46.

 

Jesus says these stories tell us something about God’s Kingdom. I think there are a few details to emphasize here:

 

First, the characters in each of these stories discover something very valuable and sacrifice all they have to get it. In the same way, saying “yes” to God usually means saying “no” to something else.

 

Participating in God’s Kingdom requires sacrifice! In the previous posts, you’ve read about Jesus’ invitation to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). The love Jesus described is a sacrificial love – a love that costs us something.

 

And participating in God’s Kingdom costs us something; it requires sacrifice. Rhyan sacrificed the familiarities and conveniences of the place she grew up in to serve others in Haiti. Back in Minnesota this week, I decided I needed to sacrifice Netflix because it was keeping me from fully loving God and fully loving others. Tonight, I may sacrifice some sleep to spend time with God. Tomorrow, I might sacrifice my pride and apologize when I mess up.

 

For every person each day the sacrifices will be different. It doesn’t mean everyone will move to Haiti or give up Netflix, but sacrificing all you have means that nothing is off the table! Sacrificing everything means that who I am and what I have is primarily for God’s use, not mine. And that is sometimes hard, which is why this next part is so important to understand.

 

In the two stories Jesus told, the men cashed in all they had for these treasures and you know what happened next? Not sadness. Not stress. Not a sense of loss. But joy! There was incredible joy at the purchase of the buried treasure and the pearl of great price.

 

And when I tell Rhyan she has sacrificed so much to serve alongside people in Haiti, she shakes her head and tells me that this is exactly where she should be – that she gets to spend every day with people she loves, experiencing peace that doesn’t make any sense and joy that goes beyond understanding.

 

And that is meant to be our response too! It is not out of a deep sense of somber duty that we participate in the Kingdom. Rather, we take part as citizens in God’s Kingdom because we know the Kingdom is worth it! We know we are giving up a little to receive something far greater.

 

What about you? What is God inviting you to sacrifice so you can better participate in the Kingdom?

 

Sacrifice doesn’t mean you need to sell everything you own and go live in seclusion. Instead, sacrifice for the Kingdom means that you’re willing to use anything you have and anything you are for God’s Kingdom purposes instead of your own. There is joy that comes when your sacrifices begin to feel less like you are giving up your stuff and more like you are taking part in what God is doing – when you begin to realize that God’s Kingdom purposes have become your purposes too.

 

There’s one last important part to the story Jesus told. The merchant was searching and searching for fine pearls; the other guy was just wandering through someone else’s field. Although one was seeking and one was not, they both discovered a treasure of great value that was worth sacrificing for.

 

Perhaps you are steadily seeking Jesus and what participating in the Kingdom looks like. Or maybe you feel like this whole Jesus/Kingdom thing has caught you by surprise but made you curious enough to dig a little deeper. No matter how you’ve discovered Jesus and the Kingdom he talked so much about, you are invited to participate more fully! To love God and love others in ways that sometimes require sacrifice. But a sacrifice that is entirely overturned by the incredible value of what you receive… a sacrifice for the Upside-Down Kingdom that is well worth the cost.

 

CONSIDER…

1. Which character in Jesus’ two stories are you more like: the man who stumbled upon treasure or the merchant who was seeking? What are some reasons you are like that character?

2. The Kingdom is established wherever God is making things right – in and through God’s people as they follow Jesus. How valuable is God’s Kingdom to you? What are some reasons?

3. What have you sacrificed for God’s Kingdom?

4. How is Jesus prompting you to make sacrifice a bigger part of your relationship with him?

Take a few minutes to talk with God about what sacrifice for the Kingdom looks like in your life. Ask God to make you aware of areas in your life that may require sacrifice, but avoid reducing sacrifice to just one thing. Take some time to thank God for the valuable treasure of the Kingdom taking root in and around you.

 

 

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Sam Townsend helps write training, programming and marketing materials for YouthWorks mission trips. When he isn’t hanging around teenagers at church or digging into seminary homework, he is generally looking for a good conversation and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant to have it in. Sam still considers his first couple summers working for YouthWorks in Virginia and Pennsylvania communities some of the most transformative times of his life.