Fan or Follower - Essentials Intro

Pray

Introduction

In a minute I’m going to ask you all a question - it’s a question I’ve asked before in an evening service, but I’m asking it again today. And I’ll explain why I’m asking this question in a minute or two - because there is a reason for asking this question.

But before I ask this question, I want to tell you a story, and again, this is also a story I’ve told before...

In the 2008 Olympics, Michael Phelps, the American swimmer, won 8 gold medals, 2 more golds than the previous Olympic games. Now, at that time he was unstoppable - people wanted to be like him.

He was all over the news. Every morning on the news there was a story of Phelps winning ANOTHER gold medal. It was like he was half man half dolphin. In fact, I was convinced he was on performance enhancing drugs. Nobody was THAT good. But he wasn’t on drugs - he WAS THAT good.

And not being a sports fan, even I thought he was impressive. You might stretch it to say that I was a fan - I mean, I admired his skill at swimming. I was impressed with how fast this guy was. I was blown away by the number of medals he had won. I thought this guy was a great swimmer. There was no denying that. He WAS a great swimmer.

And so you could say I was a fan of Michael Phelps...

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...but not ONCE did I ever get into a pool and train so that I could be like him. Not once, did I think to myself - ‘If I train and train and work at swimming, then I could possibly be as good as Michael Phelps.”

Because, while I was a fan, I didn’t want to put the work in to be like this man. I was happy to admire him from a distance. That was good enough for me.

I was happy to sit in my shorts, with a bowl of popcorn on my lap cheering him on when he was on TV. That’s as far as I was willing to go.

Because, I mean - COME ON - all that training and swimming is a LOT of hard work. Ain’t nobody got time for that. Certainly not me. So I watched from a distance. I admired him, but that’s as far as it went. There was NO WAY I was going to follow in his footsteps. That was too much like hard work to me.

Pause

But there was probably a boy or a girl somewhere around the world who saw Michael Phelps and thought to themselves, ‘I can be like that person. If I put the time and effort into training and working hard and disciplining myself, I could become like Michael Phelps.

Well, turns out there was someone like that - a girl called Rebecca Meyers...

Insert Slide of Rebecca Meyers

...who saw him, was impressed by him, and decided that she wanted to be like him.

And so she committed her life to be like him - so she trained and the trained. In fact, she went through arduous training, sacrificed time with her friends, to train; she sacrificed junk food to be a better, fitter athlete.

She suffered the exhaustion and early morning training sessions so she could be like her hero Michael Phelps. The joy of being like her hero was worth more than the suffering she had to endure to become like him… until a couple of years ago, at the Rio paralympics, she won gold.

Now what was the difference between me and Rebecca Meyers? What made her win her gold medal and what made me not even get up off the sofa?

The difference between Rebecca and myself was that I was a fan of Michael Phelps - Rebecca was a follower of Michael Phelps. She FOLLOWED in his footstep…I didn’t.

Which means that Rebecca wasn’t just a fan of Michael Phelps, she didn’t just admire him - she took it upon herself to be LIKE HIM. To go through the discipline of getting up early, the discipline of eating the right food, the discipline of training hard and committing herself to be like this man Michael Phelps. She changed her whole life to be like him and it paid off, because she won gold.

Me....I didn’t do anything to be like Phelps. I was a fan. I admired what he did, but I never once got into a pool. I never once changed my diet, because I didn’t want to be like him. I was happy to admire him from a distance.

I was a fan - Rebecca was a follower.

Pause

Now, when it comes to Jesus, here’s my question...

Are you a fan or a follower?

Are you happy to watch from a distance, to admire what Jesus did, to say, ‘yea, I think he was a good guy’...

Or are you a follower of Jesus? Are you someone who wants to be like him, who is prepared to put in the hard work, the training, sacrificing certain things to be like Jesus? Are you prepared to discipline yourself to be more like Jesus?

Or would you rather admire him from a distance. Be a fan of Jesus, but not a true follower? Which are you?

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And this leads us to today’s passage from Matthew 7.

At the end of the sermon on the mount Jesus says this...

Matthew 7:21–27 NIV

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ 24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

And before Jesus leaves the disciples, he says this - right at the end of Matthew...

Matthew 28:19–20 NIV

19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Now, put all this together and what have you got?

You’ve got a command from Jesus, to his disciples, to go out and make MORE disciples. A command to make MORE followers of Jesus - not fans....followers.

People who obey what Jesus commands (verse 20). People who follow Jesus, people who are committed to him, who are committed to obeying him. People who are disciplined in how they live their life, careful to walk in the way Jesus walked.

People, who put what Jesus said into practice - like the wise man who built his house upon the rock.

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In fact, let’s look at this parable a second. We often take the parable from half way through verse 24 and start the parable like this....

A wise man built his house upon a rock...

BUT that’s not how the parable starts.

The parable starts like this...

Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a man who built his house upon a rock...

Now there’s a difference here. Jesus is putting the parable in context. And the context is what we do with the teaching of Jesus....from the bible, from the preached word on a Sunday, from your own bible reading…what do you do with the word of God?

Jesus is finishing up his sermon on the mount at this point in Matthew. He’s taught so much about life in the kingdom of God and he leaves his listeners with this challenge - what will you do with my words?

Are you going to apply this teaching to your life or are you simply going to say, ‘that was nice’, and think nothing more of it?

Will you be a fan or a follower? Will you admire me and my teaching from a distance, or will you commit yourself to following what I am teaching you? Will you commit to taking my words and applying them to how you live your life - when it comes to lust, when it comes to divorce, when it comes to anger and prayer, and giving and so on?

Will you follow me and my teaching or will you admire me from a distance and simply be a fan?

It’s a matter of hearing and doing.... it’s a matter of obedience - which brings us back to that command at the end of Matthew’s gospel...

Make disciples of all nations, teaching them to OBEY everything I have commanded you... Teaching them to apply my teaching to their lives, because that’s what a disciple is.

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Disciples of Jesus are followers, not fans.

And when we have our foundation on Jesus Christ, the rock of our salvation, and we BUILD upon that by modelling our lives on his word and his teaching, then we will have a solid structure that will stand any amount of abuse and will last for all eternity.

The alternative is the house with a foundation that is not firm, that is movable - that might change from one day to the next. Any structure built on that is doomed to collapse. Jesus says these are the people who HEAR his words, but don’t put them into action.

And that is the case in many churches today - even this one.

Every church has people in it who are committed Christians - who have given their lives to Jesus and are trying as best they can to obey his commandments. These people hear the word of God every week and try to put it into practice in their lives. They apply God’s word to their lives and help it shape who they are as a Christian - as a follower of Jesus.

But every church also has people who come every Sunday who hear the word of God but do nothing at all with it. They don’t apply it to their lives and don’t make any effort to follow Jesus. These are the fans who build their house on the sand.

And these are also the people in verses 21-23 who will say to Jesus on the day of Judgement, ‘Lord Lord. Did we not come to church every week? Did we not give our money in our envelopes every week? Did we not listen to your word being read and preached every week?’

But Jesus says, that’s not enough...

Matthew 7:21 NIV

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

“I’m a member of Hillhall Presbyterian Church, does that not make me get in?”

NO! Only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven...

Only those who put Jesus’s words into practice. Only those who get up off the sofa and train, only those who are following Jesus, who have committed their lives to be like him, like Rebecca Meyers did with Micheal Phelps.

Only those people can say to Jesus, ‘Lord, Lord’ and enter into the kingdom of heaven.

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Now, my prayer is that more and more people will make the change from fan to follower. My prayer is that more and more people will secure their eternal destination right here and now and make the switch to committing their lives to Jesus.

But the word disciple is from the same root word where we get the word discipline…and there’s a reason.

Just like the difference between being a fan and a follower of Micheal Phelps is whether or not you’re willing to get up off the sofa and put the hours in to train and do what Phelps did to become a great athlete, what makes someone a disciple is whether or not you’re willing to take the words you hear every week at church and put them into practice. It’s whether or not you’re willing to put the hard work in to following Jesus in how you live your life.

Being a disciple requires discipline.

Paul says it in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27...

1 Corinthians 9:24–27 ESV

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

Now what was Paul’s advice in verse 24?

Run in such a way as to get the prize! Paul says we need to discipline ourselves, by following the commands in God’s word, by applying them to our lives, by getting up when we don’t want to and spending time with Jesus, by committing ourselves to following the way of Jesus even when it’s hard…because we are running to get a prize that is eternal.

And it’s the difference between being a fan or a follower. Between being a church goer and being a disciple of Jesus.

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Interestingly, I looked up ‘church’ in a few resources that I have. Here’s what one of the scholars wrote about the church....

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine 1. Definition

The church is the community of all true believers for all time. This definition understands the church to be made of all those who are truly saved.

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine 2. The Church Is Invisible, Yet Visible

In its true spiritual reality as the fellowship of all genuine believers, the church is invisible. This is because we cannot see the spiritual condition of people’s hearts. We can see those who outwardly attend the church, and we can see outward evidences of inward spiritual change, but we cannot actually see into people’s hearts and view their spiritual state—only God can do that. This is why Paul says, “The Lord knows those who are his” (2 Tim. 2:19). Even in our own churches and our own neighborhoods, only God knows who are true believers with certainty and without error.

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine 2. The Church Is Invisible, Yet Visible

The visible church throughout the world will always include some unbelievers, and individual congregations will usually include some unbelievers, because we cannot see hearts as God sees them.

This is another way of putting what Jesus said in Matthew 7 - not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven.

So the church is made up of the visible church - the church that everyone sees, which contains both followers of Jesus and fans…both those people who are committed to following Jesus and those people who think that going to church will give them some credibility either in this world or when it comes to judgement day. And those are the people who HEAR God’s word every week, but don’t put it into practice - the foolish builders.

So that’s the church that everyone sees.

The REAL church is invisible and it’s the church that contains the followers - those people who have truly committed their lives to Jesus. Those who hear God’s word and seek to put it into practice - the wise builders.

And like I said, my prayer is that more and more people make the transition from fan to follower, from foolish to wise, from someone who knows ABOUT Jesus to someone who is a disciple of Jesus.

And it starts with admitting that we are sinners who are in need of a saviour. It starts with us admitting that we cannot save ourselves and trusting in Jesus for our salvation.

And some have yet to do that and some have already done that.

Those that have done that are disciples and are on a journey of discovery of what that actually means. Because Jesus commanded his disciples to go and make MORE disciples - not just people who ask Jesus into their hearts…Jesus wants disciples - followers of him. People who have committed their lives, their desires, their whole essence to Jesus.

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Now, to that end, it would be good to learn what discipleship really is, because I’m not sure if we really have grasped that in our churches. I know that before I went into the ministry, I knew what discipleship meant in a general way, but not really what it meant practically.

So...

During Paul’s Sabbatical in February and March, we are going to enter into a new study in the morning services and in the Wednesday midweek meetings. The two meetings will go hand-in-hand and will complement each other.

During the morning services we will be looking at the PCI initiative called Essentials…and Essentials is a series of studies from the bible around the essential elements of discipleship - what it means to be a follower of Jesus - not a FAN, but a follower of Jesus - a disciple…someone who is disciplined in following Jesus.

Each week we will be looking at a different aspect of discipleship in the Sunday morning service, and each Wednesday evening we will be discussing this in further detail along with a video from ‘real’ disciples that helps explain each section further.

So for anyone who is interested in what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, I would encourage you to come along on Sunday mornings when we will be looking at it from various passages of scripture, but also to try to come along to the Wednesday night meeting - even if your don’t normally come along to the midweek meeting - because that’s where you will be able to discuss this further in a more relaxed format.

To aid this, the Wednesday night meetings will be held in the upper room at around 8 o’clock, just after the beavers leave the room.

So if you’re curious about discipleship or serious about discipleship, come along and let’s work at this together.

Let’s be people who hear God’s words and put them into practice - let’s be followers of Jesus and not just fans. The difference is life-changing.

So ask yourself, ‘am I a fan of Jesus or a follower?’

And then ask yourself, ‘do I want to know what being a follower of Jesus is all about?’

Come along each week as we look at this together and discover what it means to be a true disciple of Jesus.

Watch the screen.

[Show promo video]

Let’s pray.