In fact, both words are recurring themes in the Bible as a whole, but it's interesting that God keeps bringing them to my attention in a season where I've sometimes found myself in a position of having to make a choice between the two.
The Bible tells some stories that are examples of sacrificial obedience - obeying God even when it is very costly for us. An Old Testament example would be in the book of Esther, where Queen Esther risks her own life in order to save her people. A New Testament example would of course be Jesus Himself, who obeyed God and sacrificed His own life in order to purchase salvation for mankind. The phrase sacrificial obedience is so common in Christian circles that it would be very easy for us to believe that they are always one and the same thing.
Of course, they're not. The people who wrote the psalms, for example, often speak of their joyful obedience or their willing obedience - of times when God's favour and blessing are so obvious that it's a joy to obey Him and there seems to be no sacrifice involved at all. Obedience and sacrifice are not always the same thing.
This was a principle that God sought to impress on the very first king of Israel, King Saul. In 1 Samuel 15: 22, Saul was told, "To obey is better than to make a sacrifice." Pressurised by people and circumstances, Saul had rushed to offer up a sacrifice, believing that it would ensure God's blessing on himself and his army. (I wrote about this incident in a blog post a few months ago: see here.)
But, speaking through the prophet Samuel, God tells Saul very clearly: It is not your sacrifice that brings blessing; it is your obedience.
In the psalm I was reading this morning, Psalm 40, we can see that God has impressed that same lesson on the heart of Saul's successor, King David. In that psalm, David says to the Lord: I finally understand that you don't take delight in sacrifice; that's not what you require of us. What you're looking for is obedience, and I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart.
Of course, sometimes obedience is costly for us because our desires and our priorities are not always the same as God's. But it's important for us to understand, like David, that sacrifice and obedience are not always the same thing. Sometimes we have to make a choice between them. Sometimes true obedience requires us, unlike Saul, to have enough faith not to make the sacrifice.
