Sermon Tone Analysis

*Sermon Title*

 

v    Opening Illustration

One of my best friends once moved several mile closer to where he worked because he figured out that he would save almost 2 weeks a year in commuting.

It is interesting where we spend our time when we think about it…

A study revealed that an average seventy-year-old man has spent

?

24 years sleeping,

?   14 years working,

?   8 years in amusements,

?   6 years at the dinner table,

?   5 years in transportation,

?   4 years in conversation,

?   3 years in education,

?   and 2 years in studying and reading.

His other four years were spent in miscellaneous pursuits.

Of those 4 years, he spent 45 minutes in church on Sundays, and 5 minutes were devoted to prayer each day.

This adds up to a not at all impressive total of 5 months that he gave to God over the seventy years of his life.

Even if this man had been a faithful churchgoer who attended Sun­day school and three one-hour services per week, he would have spent only one year and nine months in church!

I challenge you, sit down and figure out how /you /have been using your time.

How large a portion of it is for the things of God?

 

v    For most of us, we do this in retrospect

Ø     But what Jesus is saying to us today is…

§        Really consider the consequences before you commit your life to Christ

 

*READ v. 57-58*

* *

v    Through this first encounter we see Jesus really asking the man to…

* *

*Count the Cost (v.

57-58)*

v    Sadhu Sundar Singh

Ø     Brought up in privileged Hindu family in India

Ø     Dramatic conversion experience in 1905

Ø     Renounced by his father and ostracized from family

Ø     October 16, 1906 began nomadic life

§        "I am not worthy to follow in the steps of my Lord, but, like Him, I want no home, no possessions.

Like Him I will belong to the road, sharing the suffering of my people, eating with those who will give me shelter, and telling all men of the love of God."

Ø     Took only New Testament, never again having a place to lay his head

Ø     For 25 years traveled village to village

Ø     1929 set off for Tibet and was never seen again

 

v    Sadhu Sundar Singh’s life is a testimony to what Christ said here

Ø     But let’s face it…

§        Jesus is not calling everyone to live a nomadic life, is he?

·        The fact is that 99.9% of all Christians who have ever lived have had a home

 

Ø     So what did Jesus mean by challenging us in this way?

§        In a true sense, when we become followers ~/ disciples of Christ, we actually do become nomadic

·        We trade one home for another

¨     *Phil 3:20* ~~ Citizenship is in heaven

¨      *2 Cor 5:8*

Ø     /We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord/

/ /

v    The truth is…

v    Our home is no longer here!

Ø     And that is Radical

§        Home is one of the most basic needs in our life

·        We say…

¨     “Home is where the heart is”

Ø     Yet following Jesus requires us to radically reorient ourselves

§        This life is a pilgrimage

§        This life is nomadic

·        And if you think of the nomadic life

¨     It makes sense that the Lord would want it this way

 

·        The nomadic life is characterized by a…

¨     Willingness to leave

Ø     This we see in missionaries

§        E.g.

Dave and Ginny Philips

Ø     For us maybe it is a willingness to go where the Lord leads

 

·        The nomadic life is characterized by a…

¨     Not getting attached

Ø     Nomads constantly are on the move

Ø     Never putting down roots

Ø     Never building permanent foundations

Ø     Never getting attached to a certain place

§        That is perhaps the hardest thing for us to do

§        This world becomes “home”

·        And that is deadly to a Christian

¨     *Illustration: Shawshank Redemption*

Ø     Andy Duphrain sent to prison for life for a murder he did not commit

Ø     One thing he did not do was to consider Shawshank prison home

Ø     He always dreamed of being released

Ø     Always dreamed of getting out

Ø     Always hoped beyond the walls of the prison

Ø     Always lived outside the walls

§        Thus that gave him freedom inside those walls

 

v    Jesus asks us here to Count the Cost of a nomadic life

Ø     And be willing to give up even the most important things for him

 

The story is told that when James Calvert went out as a missionary to the cannibals of the Fiji Islands, the captain of the ship that had carried him there tried to turn him back by saying, "You will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go among such savages."

Calvert's reply demonstrated that he had truly counted the cost.

He turned to the captain and said, "We died before we came here."

v    Calvert understood the nomadic life and that this was not his home!

Ø     When you get tempted by this life

§         Remember what Jesus said in *Mk 10:29-30*

·        Peter had just exclaimed that he had left everything to follow Jesus

¨     Jesus said…

¨     /I tell you the truth, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much…in the age to come, eternal life/

 

v    Jesus challenges us in another way in the following 2 verses

 

*READ v. 59-60*

* *

v    We have all seen or heard of the movie

Ø     Dead Poets Society

§        Famous scene where Robin Williams takes students into the hall to look at old picture

·        Carpe Diem

v    That is what Jesus is telling us through this text

 

*Carpe Diem (v.

59-60)*

v    The text can be a little confusing…

Ø     Father not dead