Sermon Central
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Calculate The Cost
Contributed by Michael Deutsch on Jan 30, 2019 (message contributor)
Summary: When we embrace a relationship with Jesus, we end up calculating the cost of following Him. I use a current political story to show not everything is as we think it is.
Calculate the Cost
February 3, 2019
I’m going to start out being a little political. Most of you will recall that there was an incident in Washington DC, in which some students from a Catholic school were chastised, and that’s being gentle for how they treated a Native American who was playing a drum in front of them.
The lasting image was this picture.
I’m going to get into some of the dynamics. There’s a purpose behind this and please understand I’m NOT taking a political stance on this. After the initial videos the boys looked guilty.
If you look simply at the initial videos, you don’t catch all of the facts. The more videos you watch, the more disturbing this entire situation became. I’m going to show 5 video clips, ranging from a couple of seconds to 7 seconds long. The purpose is to show you something and use this as a springboard into today’s passage.
The first video is a few seconds of Nathan Phillips, the Native American drummer. He’s drumming in front of the high school kids.
VIDEO
As a high schooler, let alone an adult, we’re ill prepared to know what to do in those situations. Notwithstanding the fact that the boys had no clue that Nathan Phillips drumming was intended to bring peace! I don’t think any of us would know that.
Now, let’s go a little deeper, because everything is not always as it seems to be. Remember that as we talk about what Christ says to a crowd of people.
It’s been said the high school students surrounded Phillips while he was drumming, but - - it was Phillips who walked into their area. Here’s the video of that
VIDEO
Now, if you listen closely, one of the Native Americans shouts for the boys to go back to Europe, it’s not your land. Then, someone called one of the African American boys in the high school group a name, using the N word. That’s bleeped out. Then you’ll see other African American protesters who consider themselves prophets. They’re yelling at the boys and calling President Trump homosexuals; and swears at the boys (which is bleeped out).
VIDEO
Ok, the videos are done. If all you saw was the first video, you’d be talking about how rude and insensitive these high schools kids were.
Now, I’ll give you my 30 second analysis. These were high school kids who aren’t at all prepared for a situation like this. I believe the chaperones messed up. The kids were waiting for their buses, but I would have moved them and had them walk away. The buses would find them, and they would find the buses.
Nathan Phillips the drummer, was wrong. He walked into their space, he said to create peace, but we all would have been clueless about what he was trying to do.
The African Americans were wrong.
Here’s the issue - - - There was so much hate going on, and really that’s a major part of the problem in our country, if we can’t agree with one another, then we just hate one another.
It was a volatile situation . . . and sadly the focus for everyone is on . . . hatred. The media, the people involved, the public at large . . . for the most part, it was hate! We tend to hate anyone who is different than us. We don’t talk about it, but often times that’s very true. We become afraid and that fear leads to hatred.
Well, why all the talk about hate and this video! Because that’s the basis of my message this morning. Maybe I got your mind racing about that situation, but now it’s time to focus on a message from Jesus that sounds totally irrational, it’s something I would not expect my boys to follow through with, nor Debbie, nor myself. Yet, Jesus calls us to act in a very particular way.
But if we read His words on the surface, it’s totally crazy to do what Jesus is asking us to do. And it’s all predicated on the word HATE!
I want to read from Luke 14 —
25 Now great crowds accompanied Jesus, and He turned and said to the people,
26 “If anyone comes to me and does not HATE his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. – Luke 14:25-33
There’s more to the passage, which we will look at in a bit. As harsh as Jesus may have been in the passages we looked at last week, it seems even worse this week.
