Preached July 30,1989, evening service New Winchester Missionary Baptist Church Danville, Indiana
Dr. Arthur G. Ferry, Jr., Pastor
There is a delightful story about two merchants. One was
clean-shaven. No matter how hard he tried, he could not grow a
beard. The other had a long, thick beard. One day the
clean-shaven one asked, "Friend, you have such a nice beard. I
was wondering if you would sell it to me?"
"Why not?" the bearded one answered. "If the price is
right."
"I'll pay you whatever you ask," replied the clean-shaven
one. "There is only one condition. I want the beard to remain on
YOUR face. I will care for it. I will trim it, brush it, perfume
it. The beard will be on your face, but I will own it
completely."
His friend was surprised but had no objection. So the
clean-shaven fellow bought the beard on his fellow merchant's
face. And he kept his word about caring for the beard. At any
hour of the day or night, he might walk into his friend's shop or
home and start grooming his beard--on the other man's face.
Sometimes he would pull at the beard roughly with an extra fine
comb. At other times he would coat it with heavy and sometimes
unpleasant perfumes. No matter how busy the bearded man might be,
the clean-shaven one would exercize his right to care for his
beard. Whenever his friend would protest he would retort calmly,
"It is my beard. I will do with it as I please."
Very soon this constant grooming became more than the
bearded merchant could stand. "I can't bear this any longer," he
cried. "I am going to have my beard shaved off."
The clean-shaven one replied sharply, "You mean MY beard.
If you do I will sue. We have a contract."
Finally the bearded merchant said, "All right. You win. I
want to buy back my beard. How much will you take?"
"Oh," replied the clean-shaven one, "I have grown very
fond of MY beard. It will hurt me to part with it. But I guess if
you pay me four times what I bought it for, I will let it go."
The poor bearded man howled, but considering what he had
been through, he agreed to pay his friend four times what he had
received for the beard. Then he had his beard shaved off. He had
lost his money and his beard, but he had learned a lesson--about
hasty transactions and painful losses.
Jesus once said, "For which of you, desiring to build a
tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has
enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation,
and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,
saying, `This man began to build, and was not able to finish.' Or
what king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit
down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand
men to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand?"
(RSV) In other words, Jesus was saying, "Avoid hasty transactions
and painful losses. Sit down and think through the consequences
of your actions." Or as we would say today, "Look before you
leap."
Somewhere I read about a town in Michigan that spent
$50,000 on new flagpoles. Fine. Flagpoles are great. But then
they ran out of money. They could not afford flags to put on
their new poles. Is there anything more useless than a flagpole
without a flag? Hasty transactions and painful losses. Counting
the cost before building the tower.
JESUS WANTED PEOPLE TO GIVE SOME THOUGHT TO THE CONDUCT
OF THEIR LIVES.
That is the first thing we need to see this
morning. By doing that, you can save yourself a lot of trouble.
In 1974 the government of Nigeria decided to bring their
country at a single leap into line with most developed Western
nations. The planners calculated that to build the new roads,
airfields, and military buildings which the plan required would
call for some 20 million tons of cement. This was duly ordered
and shipped by freighters from all over the world, to be unloaded
onto the docks at Lagos, Nigeria. Twenty million tons of cement.
Unfortunately, the Nigerian planners had not considered the fact
that the docks at Lagos were only capable of handling two
thousand tons a day. Working every day, it would have taken
twenty-seven years to unload the ships that were at one point
waiting at sea off Lagos. These contained a third of the world's
supply of cement--much of it showing its fine quality by setting
solid in the holds of the freighters. Hasty
transactions--painful losses. Poor planning--disastrous results.
Building a tower before counting the cost.
It happens all the time. Most of us have been guilty at
sometime or another. Of course, some people never learn--even
from their losses. Do you know the story of the two hunters who
flew deep into remote Canada in search of elk? When they started
back home, their pilot, seeing that they had bagged six elk, told
them the plane could carry only four out. The hunters protested,
"The plane that carried us out last year was exactly like this
one. The horsepower was the same, the weather was similar, and
we had six elk then." Hearing this, the pilot reluctantly agreed
to try. They loaded up and took off. Unfortunately the plane
did not have sufficient power to climb out of the valley with all
that weight, so they crashed. As they stumbled from the
wreckage, one hunter asked the other if he knew where they were.
"Well, I'm not sure," replied the second hunter, "but I think we
are about two miles from where we crashed last year."
Some people are hopeless. They never learn. But you and I
are smarter than that. We can learn from past experiences. We can
sit down, think things out and come to some logical conclusions.
That is all Jesus is asking out of us. Some people think of
Christianity as being primarily an emotional experience. Nothing
could be farther from the truth. Christ wants us to think things
through. He wants us to count the cost.
THE AMAZING THING IS HOW FEW PEOPLE WANT TO THINK ABOUT
THE THINGS THAT MATTER MOST.
Do you remember the motion picture,
THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI? Alec Guinness played the Senior
British Officer in a Japanese concentration camp who undertook to
build a railroad bridge for the Japanese. He thought that
building this bridge would lift his men's sagging morale and give
them a sense of purpose, something to accomplish while they were
imprisoned. It worked. They built the bridge. Indeed, they
built it so well that the Allies had to organize an expedition to
blow it up. When the Senior British officer saw that they were
trying to destroy his achievement, he was outraged. Then there
comes the terrible moment in which Alec Guinness realizes what
has happened, and he cries out, "My God, what have I done?" He
was so busy succeeding in his enterprise that he lost all sense
of its meaning. He had built a bridge for the enemy!
Surely he would not have made that terrible mistake if he
had thought through the consequences. Think how many tragedies
would be avoided if people simply sat down a few moments and
thought through the consequences of their actions. Think how many
homes would still be intact, think how many prisons would be
empty, think how many lives would be spared if folks would just
think!
Psychologists tell us that about 10,000 thoughts pass
through the human brain each day. That makes 70,000 each week
and 3.65 million thoughts a year. One or two of them ought to
take!
Sir Isaac Newton was once asked how he discovered the Law
of Gravity. "By thinking about it," he answered.
As one cynic said, "Use your brain. It's the little
things that count." Use your brain. Instead we settle for hasty
transactions and painful losses.
I believe it was Dwight L. Moody who once said that if he
could get someone to think only ten minutes about the condition
of his soul, he could convert him. The trouble is that most of us
refuse to think about the things that really matter most.
THIS BRINGS US TO THE FINAL THING TO BE SAID: THE MOST
IMPORTANT THOUGHT WE CAN HAVE CONCERNS OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD.
When Jesus taught about counting the cost before building a
tower, his real concern was not architecture or construction. He
was advising potential followers about what it meant to be his
disciple. He concluded this teaching with these words: "So
therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has
cannot be my disciple." Wow! That will clear the room in a hurry.
Renounce everything? How many of us really want to take this
religion business that far? Yet that is the demand Christ makes
out of every one of us if we would be his disciple.
And why not? People all the time are committing
themselves to matters of far less importance. I read recently
that of the 70,000 members registered with the Screen Actors
Guild, 80% earn less than $5,000 per year. Remember that if any
of you are star-struck and ready to head for Hollywood. Only 3%
earn more than $50,000 a year. Yet many of these professional
actors will tell you that acting is their life. Why do they do
it? Evidently it is not the money. Then why?
One of our leading professional athletes startled many of
us when he said recently that he does 1,000 sit-ups a day. How
could anybody be that dedicated to a game?
We hear about business people who work 60, 70, even 80
hour weeks, neglecting their health and their families in their
service of the god of success. Why, then, should we be surprised
that Christ would ask as much?
He asks even more. He asks for it all. That doesn't mean
we live at the church. No. The call to renounce everything is not
a call to everyone to become a full-time churchman. It is a call
to make our entire life--our work, our play, our family
relationships, everything--pleasing in God's sight. The ironic
thing is that when we renounce everything for Christ's sake, we
find that we are the winners. No hasty transaction--no painful
loss. We find that in pleasing God, we ultimately please
ourselves. Because God's way leads to life.
Many years ago a young couple had their first child, a
boy. As the boy began to grow, they noticed that he had musical
talent. He could play the violin. So they began to try and find
the best teacher for him they could find. They were told about
an old Swiss maestro who used to teach but had retired. They
decided to try anyway and took their boy to him. When he heard
the boy play he realized his ability and decided to teach him.
The boy was just eight years old. For ten years his teacher
worked with him every day. Then came time for his debut. His
parents booked Carnegie Hall. The press and all the important
people came. The lights dimmed and the boy came out on stage.
From the very first note he held the crowd mesmerized until the
end. When he finished, the people stood to their feet and filled
the hall with cheers and applause. Yet the boy ran off the stage
crying. The stage manager yelled, "Get back out there. They love
you. They are all cheering and clapping." The boy replied,
"There is one who is not." The manager ran out on stage and came
back and said, "O. K., one old man is not applauding. You can't
worry about what one old man thinks when the world loves you."
The boy replied, "But you don't understand, That's my teacher."
The world may think of us as a success, but if sometime
in our life we have not thought out that one thing in our life
that matters most--whether our life is pleasing to God--our life
is a hasty transaction and a painful loss.
All Christ asks is for you to use your brain. You can
save yourself a lot of problems by thinking through the
consequences of your behavior. Be smart. Lose your life and save
it.
