"Defining the Relationship"
Series: Not A Fan, by Kyle Idleman
Sunday, February 10, 2013- John 6:60-69

Introduction: As you look out at many churches today, you see that there is a trend to water down the gospel to make it more appealing for the masses. People want their churches to grow, and so they think that they have to change the message of Jesus so that it is more accessible to the average person. But if you look at Jesus’ teaching, you see that He never watered anything down; He gave it to the people straight.

            Think about the teaching of Jesus when there was a big crowd. The message He usually gave was one that caused people to leave. For example, in John chapter 6, Jesus is probably teaching to a crowd of more than 5,000 people. At this point in His ministry Jesus has never been more popular. Word has spread about His miracles, His healings, and His teaching. The people are there to cheer Him on!

            As the day goes on the people are getting hungry. Jesus has the disciples feed them with the 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish that He blesses. That night Jesus crosses over to the other side of the lake with His disciples. The next day the crowd sees Jesus over there, and comes to Him. Jesus knows it is because of the miracle He did of feeding them. Now Jesus wants to change the tone of His relationship with them. Jesus tells them: “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry…”

            They then start complaining because they wonder who Jesus really is. They know Him as the son of Joseph. They wonder how He can give them His flesh to eat. They misunderstand what Jesus is trying to say. John 6:60 tells us: “When many of His disciples heard it, they said, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?’”

            This morning we start our Lenten Series “Not A Fan.” This book was written by Kyle Idleman, and challenges us in our thinking in regards to our view of Jesus, and our relationship to Jesus!

I.                   Those Who turned Back- (John 6:61-66)

a.      Response to Jesus’ teaching- When Jesus says that He is the bread of

life, He is basically stating that He is the only thing on the menu that matters. At this point the crowd has to decide if Jesus will satisfy them, or if they are hungry for something more, or something different.

            Jesus responds to the questioning of His hard teaching in verses 61-63, “Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? ⁶² Then what if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! ⁶³ The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.”

            Jesus is aware of their grumbling. Jesus is aware that His teaching is challenging for them to accept. At this point He doesn’t back off of His teaching or try and making it easier to deal with. Rather, He tells them that His words are full of Spirit and life. His words are what will give them the true life. His words are what will help them overcome their fleshly ways, and lead them into the life they were meant to have.

            The people had come to see Jesus. They had experienced a miracle from Jesus. They were excited at the possibilities of what Jesus could do for them. They were thinking about themselves, and for their own selfish needs. So when Jesus challenges them about Him being the bread of life, and about needing to follow the will of God over their own, they didn’t like that teaching!

            Jesus understands that His teaching will send people away. We know this because Jesus says in verses 64-65: “‘Yet there are some of you who do not believe.’ For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray Him.” It seems that Jesus isn’t concerned with the ones who didn’t believe. He isn’t even concerned about the ones who somewhat believe, but will stop believing when He speaks the truth. This is not because He doesn’t care about them, but rather because He knows that if someone isn’t a true follower, the world will lead them away from Him. Jesus knows that His disciples must know the whole truth, and accept the whole truth, and follow the whole truth.

            And then we are told in verse 66: “From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him.” Many of those who are fans of Jesus turn to go home. It might surprise you that Jesus doesn’t chase after them. Jesus doesn’t decide at this point: “I better soften my message to make it more appealing.” Jesus doesn’t send the disciples after them to tell them that there will be an ice cream social later. Jesus seems to be okay with the fact that His popularity will change once His full message gets out!

b.      Not the crowd, but the commitment- For Jesus, we need to

understand that it is not the size of the crowd that He cares about, but their level of commitment!! Jesus came to make disciples, not fans. He wasn’t here on this earth to get people to like Him, or accept Him, but to accept His message.

            This should be a challenge to us as a people of God, and as a church. It shouldn’t concern us what people think of us when we speak the message of God, but rather that we are speaking the truth of God for all to hear and know. We shouldn’t change Jesus’ message to try and make Him look more appealing, but rather should speak the message Jesus spoke, just as He spoke it.

            EX. Let’s say that in a number of years, when my daughter is old enough to get married, I decide to help out. So I put an ad in the paper that she wants to get married. I put an ad on a billboard. I make up t-shirts begging someone to choose her. Maybe I even offer some attractive gifts as incentives. Does that sound like a good idea? Hopefully you say “no.” Why? Because all of this will cheapen who she is. It makes it seem like whoever comes to marry her is doing her a favor.

            I WOULD NEVER DO THAT! I have a high standard for who I think should marry my daughter. I will want to meet whoever she dates, and especially the one who wants to marry her. I want her to have someone who is committed to her, and devoted to her, and loves her with his whole being.

            This should be true for us as we are telling people about Jesus. We should want people to discover what it really means to follow Jesus. We should make sure we talk about repentance, and surrender, and brokenness, and the death that sin brings.

II.                Choosing to Stay- (John 6:67-69)

a.      Staying or leaving?- Jesus then turns to His main disciples and says to

them in verse 67: “You do not want to leave too, do you?” In other words, Jesus is asking them, are you going to be a fan too, or a follower? Jesus is asking them if they are going to stay or go. Jesus is giving them the opportunity to make a full commitment to Him, not just for what they think Jesus can and will do for them, but rather for how Jesus will affect their lives. Their response? “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe that You are the Holy One of God.”

            Jesus turns to us and asks us the same question: Are you a follower? You might want to quickly answer: “Jesus, You know I’m a follower.” And then you give Jesus the reasons you think you are a follower: I have a Christian sticker on the back of my car. You go to church regularly. You own more than 3 Bibles. You serve in the church. It says “Christ Follower” on your Facebook page.

            However, you might be quick to say that you are a follower, but do you really understand what this means?

            In Matthew, chapter 7, Jesus tells of a day where everyone who has ever lived will stand before God. On that day many who call themselves Christians and identify themselves as followers will stand confidently in front of Jesus, only to hear Him say, “I never knew you. Away from me.” You cannot just assume that you are a follower of Jesus, you must make a full commitment!

b.      Defining the relationship- If Jesus will say these words to some who

think they are followers, how do we determine if WE really are followers of Christ? This is where the DTR talk comes in. If you don’t know what DTR stands for, it stands for Define the Relationship. You know how in every romantic relationship there is that time where you have to determine the level of commitment? You get to that point where you decide you are serious about the relationship, and want to make it serious, or you will break it off and go your separate ways.

            EX. When Tami and I were first dating, I think I got more serious about the relationship than she did. In fact, after 3 months, I knew I wanted to marry her. At this time Tami was actually quite busy with her golf career, and didn’t necessarily need to be in a committed relationship. She actually told me that we needed to slow down for a while. About a month after this, with some perseverance on my part, we decided to have the DTR conversation. We then decided that we believed this was a serious relationship, and continued forward, getting engaged at 6 months, and married after 13 months!

            As you define the relationship with Jesus, I want you to imagine you are sitting at a table in a local coffee shop, and in comes Jesus, sitting down next to you. Jesus skips past all the small talk and gets right to the point. He looks you in the eye and says: “It’s time we define the relationship.” He wants to know how you feel about Him. Is your relationship with Jesus exclusive? What is your level of commitment?

            Again, Jesus wants to know, are you a fan or a follower?

A fan is “an enthusiastic admirer.” It’s the person who goes to the game painted up in the home teams colors. The one who knows the stats of all the players, even though he doesn’t KNOW the players. If the team loses for too long, he will jump off the bandwagon and cheer for some other team.

            Those who are fans of Jesus cheer for Him when things are going well in their life, but walk away when it’s difficult. Fans of Jesus sit safely in the pews cheering, but they choose to not get involved in the game. Fans of Jesus know all about Jesus, but they don’t know Him.

            As I said before, Jesus was never interested in having fans. If you were to ask Jesus to define the kind of relationship He wants, “enthusiastic admirer” isn’t an option. The biggest threat to the church today is fans who call themselves Christians, but aren’t actually interested in following Christ. They want to be close enough to get the benefits, but not so close that it requires anything from them.

c.      Inaccurate measurements- The problem with asking the question,

Fan or Follower?, is that it can be difficult to be objective. After all, you don’t want to admit that Jesus won’t let you into heaven. Anyone who considers themselves to be a Christian, believes it sincerely.

            So, to help us be more objective, we need to ask: what are the measurements we should use to determine if we are fans or followers?

            First of all, we should not use cultural comparisons. A cultural comparison is where you compare your commitment level to those around you. Even more, you use the people whose commitments are low to make you feel like yours is solid. A cultural comparison is about using a grading curve, where you are more spiritual than the person next to you. It is like me comparing myself to other husbands to determine if I am a good husband or not. Inevitably I will look to those men who aren’t too good of husbands, so that I feel better about myself. Instead, I should be comparing myself to what kind of husband I should be for Tami, what kind of husband Tami deserves, and what kind of husband Tami expects to have.

            Another measurement fans use is a religious ruler. They point to their religious rules and rituals as evidence that they are really followers. They reason, a fan wouldn’t go to church every Sunday, put money in the offering plate, volunteer in some ministry, and exclusively listen to Christian music!

            Even more, inaccurate measurements come from denominational measurements, family heritage, and biblical knowledge. Rather than trying to come up with our own measurements, we need to ask: how does Jesus define what it means to follow Him? Whatever measurement Jesus gives, that is the one that we should use, and that will allow us to be objective!

d.      Diagnosing the situation- This defining the relationship talk is actually

one that Jesus had with people all the time. He didn’t necessarily sit down and have a “let’s define our relationship” moment, but He did take the time to ask them the question about their commitment. In each encounter, the person finds themselves in a position where they had to tell Jesus if they were a fan, or a follower. We will look at many of these encounters in the next few weeks of our series.

            The internet is pretty amazing. You can go on to a particular website and type in the symptoms you are experiencing, and then get a description of the most likely diagnosis. For example, if you type in “runny nose” and “nausea” the website informs you that it’s likely the flu or food allergy. If you add “lightheadedness” then it narrows it down to a food allergy. If you take away “lightheadedness” and add “fever,: then the diagnosis is likely to be the flu. The more specific the symptoms, the more likely you are to get an accurate diagnosis.

            The biblical accounts of Jesus requiring people to define their relationship and honestly determine if they were true followers give us some telltale symptoms of being a fan. As we study these encounters with Jesus they will act as a mirror so we can have a more honest assessment of ourselves.

           

Conclusion: Fans mistake their admiration for Jesus as devotion to Jesus. They mistake their knowledge of Jesus for intimacy with Jesus. Fans assume their good intentions make up for their apathetic faith. Fans are more interested in the benefits than the commitment. In fact, they want the benefit without the commitment.

            If you were to do a study in the topics of Jesus’ teachings, you would see that Jesus didn’t shy away from the tough topics. Jesus challenged the Pharisees in their being poor examples of what it means to be a follower. Jesus talked about sin, death, and hell. Jesus talked about the need to give money. Jesus talked about showing commitment to Him over all other things. Even though people walked away when Jesus got to these tough issues, He continually taught on them because He was here to make disciples/followers, not to have people in awe of His power.

            So, I leave you with this, have you defined your relationship with Jesus? You just might want to do that this week. Show yourself to be a follower, not a fan. Amen.