Good Relationships Require Sacrifices

In an episode of the comic strip “Peanuts,” Charlie Brown cracks open his piggy bank. He says to Lucy, “Look, I’ve got $9.11 to spend on Christmas gifts.” Lucy is not impressed as she says, “You can’t buy something for everyone with $9.11, Charlie Brown.” Charlie Brown says, “Oh yeah? Well, I’m gonna try!” “Then” Lucy continues, “they’re sure gonna be cheap presents.” Charlie says with absolute conviction, “Nothing is cheap if it costs all that you have.”

People often say they want their relationships to improve, but they are unwilling to take the necessary steps to improve them, they are unwilling to make sacrifices to make their relationships better.

Genesis 3:21 says, Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. This is the first Gospel message in Scripture, not in words but in action. God sacrificed an innocent animal to cover Adam and Eve. In my humble opinion, God sacrificed a lamb for each of them. This short verse also reveals an important relationship principle, as these words introduce the model in which God teaches us to seek reconciliation in our relationships and restoration when our relationships are breached. Although the word Sacrifice is not used in the verse, sacrifice is demonstrated by the action God took. The word sacrifice means, to destroy, surrender or suffer to be lost for the sake of obtaining something. Let’s evaluate the sacrifice God made for Adam and Eve’s coverings to see what we can learn about relationships.

God Went to Them

Adam and Eve had made aprons of fig leaves and gone into hiding. They were no doubt ashamed of what they had let happen. But in spite of their shame they did not go to God, they did not seek reconciliation with God and they did not go to Him seeking forgiveness. But we do find a loving and merciful God going to Adam and the Woman. The interesting thing is that God had not wronged them, God did not sin against Adam and Eve, God did not breach His relationship with them, they did all of those things to God and yet He is the one that reached out to them in reconciliation.

God Offered the Sacrifice

Adam and Eve did not make the sacrifice, God did. Adam and Eve had never seen bloodshed, they had never witnessed death. Imagine how traumatic it would have been for Adam and the Woman to witness God take the life of an innocent animal, shed the animal’s blood and make coats of skins to cover them with. I believe God took the life of an animal for each one of them and I believe the animal was a lamb. I’m saying sometimes to reconcile we must make difficult sacrifices.

The Sacrifice Made Determines the Value of the One Sacrificed For

When God offered a sacrifice to cover Adam and the Woman He expressed to them that He deemed them valuable. And that He valued His relationship with them. When we make sacrifices to improve our relationships, or to restore broken relationships, our sacrifices express to the other party that we value them and the relationship we know we can have with them.

The Reconciliation Was About Adam and Eve

I want to be careful here, there is an application to be made about reconciling relationships. But I must stress this ---ultimately everything is about the glory of God. Creation is about the glory of God, the Cross is about the glory of God. But we must understand this; Jesus did not shed his blood and die on the Cross for His sin. He shed his blood on the Cross and died for our sins. In this sense, the Cross is about us.

When God the Father made a sacrifice to cover Adam and Eve, God had not sinned against them, God had not wronged them! In that sense, the sacrifice was not about God, it was about Adam and Eve. It was about their reconciliation to God.

We think reconciling with someone is about us. We’ve been wronged, we won’t forgive, won’t reconcile because we have made reconciliation about us, It’s not about you! It’s about them and it’s still about the glory of God!

God Made a Complete Covering for Them

When we make a sacrifice in reconciliation for a complete covering, we don’t keep bringing up the sin. We don’t continually bring up the wrong, the offense that was committed. One of the reasons you have not come to terms that someone has wronged you is because you have not made a sacrifice to make it right.

 
God made a sacrifice for you and me to be forgiven, reconciled, restored and redeemed. You will find it possible to reconcile to someone----when you are willing to make a sacrifice for that reconciliation.

 

Sometimes Sacrifices are Necessary

When the Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) was built, it was the largest in the world. As is common on such projects, there were the inevitable accidents and some workmen lost their lives. When the dam was complete, they put a plaque into the wall. On it, they inscribed the names of the workmen who had died during construction. The plaque begins, “These died that the desert might rejoice and blossom as the rose.” The building of the Dam was important, and the loss of life was tragic, but without those sacrifices, the Dam would not have been completed. Sometimes sacrifices are necessary for reconciliation and sometimes they are necessary for restoration. As difficult as the sacrifices we must sometimes make, we must realize that in the end relationships can be restored, lives can be redeemed and that which was desert can blossom as the rose.