That's the word that the apostle Paul uses to encapsulate the life of the Christian in one word. Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship. The Christian life is a life of sacrifice. We're all going to make some sacrifices. Company chairmen say that when there are layoffs in the works.
Families say that when expenses exceed income.
Congregations say that when they want you to dig down deeper. When you hear sacrifice talk, you know you're not going to be in for a good time. It brings up OT images in our minds of smoldering altars and burnt offerings and blood and fire and death. The life of the creature for the life of the sinner. Jesus was God's holocaust, a whole burnt offering, holy, perfect and pleasing to God, roasted on the altar of the cross in the fire of God's wrath against our rebellion and in God's burning desire to save us from the fire of hell that we deserve.