Part 2: Sacrifice Series | The Sacrifice of the Son | Jesus is the Good News | FREE Bible Activities

The Sacrifice of the Son

In the first article of this series “The Sacrifice Of The Father” we talked about God the Father's intensified and greatly extended love. That love moved him to forever give His Son as a perfect emblem of mankind's salvation. His Son, Jesus Christ, would bear the mark of the sacrifice in his hands, side and feet.

But Jesus was no forced gift. He willingly gave himself. In Galatians 1:3-4 Paul greets the church with these words, “Grace to you and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of this present evil world, according to the will of our God and Father: to whom be the glory forever and ever Amen.”

Again we see that God the Father and the Son worked hand in hand to deliver man from sin. Jesus put aside divinity, and completely trusted in the Father so that He may sacrifice His body and risk eternal separation from the source of life.

Then we look at the life of Christ, He knew where he came from yet He suffered such insults, humiliations, deprivations and mediocrities. If there was anyone who could have said, “you know I don’t deserve this, I am better than you” it was Jesus. But never did those words enter His thoughts, nevertheless fall from his lips. Why not, because he gave, freely, He sacrificed His place of royalty. He exchanged it all so that He could take our sin and we could take His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21).

He literally took our wages, which was eternal death, so we could have his reward, eternal life. As He hung on the cross His sacrifice became more evident. He cried out, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” Had God the Father forsaken Him? In both the Old and New Testament, God says, I will never leave you or forsake you. So why would Jesus cry out this seemingly hopeless question. Perhaps Isaiah 59:2 can shed some light. In that verse the prophet says, “your iniquities have separated you from God and your sins have hidden His face from you.” What was doing the separation and the hiding, God or the sins? It was the sins. Because Jesus took on our sins, the ugliness of our characters hid God’s face from him, separating Him from God. God, who is perfect cannot dwell in the presence of sin. Thus Jesus had only faith and trust to know that God would resurrect Him so long as He continued to do as God had instructed and trained Him during his life.

His sacrifice was more than just a brutal beating, hurt feelings, callous words. Jesus' sacrifice was to be separated from the Father, that same Father that gave up everything, that guided Him in every aspect of his life so that you and I could meet, His Father, our Father.

If we are to teach our children about the sacrifice of Jesus, then it cannot just be about the physical pain he endured, or how people were not nice to him. We must teach them about the spiritual ramifications that he endured and how that affects them today. The value of this lesson will help them to see that we don’t talk about Jesus when it is the cool thing to do, if no one will get upset, but rather we share Jesus because what He did was done to save our lives.

In our Love Series, we talked about the love of God, for God, for others and for ourselves. That love only becomes more personal when we truly understand what God the Father and Jesus Christ did.

Here are some ways you can share that truth with your little loved ones.

TIP 1: Read through the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with your children. Let them see the biography of Jesus. There are many kid friendly videos that help explain the gospel or "good news" of Jesus. This video, by What's in the Bible, is one that we like.

TIP 2: Have your child create a chart with all the instances where Jesus talked about or to God the Father or prayed for mankind in one of the gospels. The idea is to show human relation was always in the forefront of His mind.

TIP 3: Find kid friendly Bible story activities. The Bible tells the story of Jesus from the beginning to the end. While doing an activity, explain how the Bible story can be connected to Christ and his loving sacrifice for us.