Not a Fan

Brandon Petras

The Great Betrayal • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Throughout his ministry, Jesus’s disciples abandoned him when things got tough or when they didn’t understand. When Jesus doesn't live up to our expectations, we too will be tempted to betray him in this way.

Notes

Transcript

Intro

Football fans sure are fickle aren’t they? I mean, they really run the gamut when it comes to their loyalty and commitment to their team.

Now there are some die-hard fans that no matter what happens they are standing by their team.

But then there are fans that can go from rooting for, loving, and being committed to their team to bashing, criticizing, and writing them all off. And oftentimes this takes place over the course of a single game.

The quarterback makes a good throw or the coach makes a good call and they are the best. But if they make a bad throw they are washed up. If the coach makes a bad call then he needs to go.

This my friends is what we call a fair weather fan. They are a committed follower of a team as long as the team performs to their expectations.

However if they don’t, then they aren’t really a fan anymore and they reject the team.

And when you read the gospels, one of the things you see is that Jesus had amassed quite a following in his 3 years of ministry. At least it was a large enough of a following that it made the religious leaders of his day nervous enough to have him executed for it.

And while he did have crowds come to hear him teach, we discover that many of them, instead of being committed followers, were more like fair weather fans.

When Jesus was doing the miracles, and healing the sick, and raising the dead, and meeting the needs, people loved him.

They would wait in long lines and in crowded rooms and streets just to catch a glimpse of this great teacher and man of God... as long as he was performing to their expectation.

Power in the text

We start to see people’s true motives come to the surface in John 6. This is where we begin to see people not as committed followers, but rather fans of Jesus who when they don’t get what he is saying, begin to walk away.

In John 6 we see a crowd of people who had to come to look for Jesus near where he had fed the 5,000. However he was not there so they went looking for him and when they found him Jesus said…

John 6:26 NLT 26 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you understood the miraculous signs.

You see Jesus feeding the 5,000 wasn’t just about feeding people, but it was about illustrating a much more significant spiritual truth.

He goes on to tell them that just as God the Father sent manna to the Israelites when they were wandering in the wilderness, He has sent a new bread from heaven, one that if they eat of it, will never be hungry again.

Of course they want this bread, who wouldn’t, and so they ask him for it, but his response to them was not what they expected it to be.

John 6:35 NLT 35 Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

John 6:41 NLT 41 Then the people began to murmur in disagreement because he had said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

John 6:53-56 NLT 53 So Jesus said again, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you. 54 But anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise that person at the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.

Well, as you can imagine, this did not sit well with people, mainly because they failed to understand what he was talking about.

All of the sudden, this person they had been following around, mostly because of what he was doing for them challenged them and their thinking.

Calling them to a greater understanding of his miracles. That it was never simply about what they could get from Jesus but what they would have to do to be his follower.

Well, now the fans were being separated from the followers.

John 6:66-69 NLT 66 At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. 67 Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?” 68 Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life. 69 We believe, and we know you are the Holy One of God.”

Big Idea

You see, when Jesus was operating in ways that made people comfortable, he was worth following, but as soon as he did or said something that challenged their way of thinking they walked away.

This was likely motivated by the fact that if they were to accept what he was saying, it would have brought them suffering in some form or another.

With the religious

With family

With friends and neighbors

The question we have to ask ourselves is are we fans or followers? Because fans don’t suffer for who they admire, only followers will do that.

If you want to be counted as a follower of Jesus then you have to be willing to follow him even when it doesn’t make sense, even when it is difficult, even when it is hard to understand, even if everyone else around you is turning away.

Fair weather fans follow the crowd, a follower isn’t concerned with what the crowd is doing.

Why it Matters

This matters because we are social creatures. We live in cliques and communities.

All of us belong to a group in one way or another.

Social

Political

Familial

Ideological

Religious

If we are not careful, we will find that the draw to be a part of our group, or at best, to not feel like an outcast in our group will cause us to say, do, and go along with things we normally wouldn’t.

Look at how the standards among Christians have changed over the years. Why has this standard shifted so much? Because of the pressure we face from culture to either agree or suffer the consequences.

Now, I believe the Church has an obligation to be relevant in the sense that our message is spoken and shared in ways that are understood by people in today’s culture.

We need to be looking for ways to connect using methods that work and make sense for a 21st century person.

That does not mean that we alter the truth so that we become more palatable or more easily accepted.

It does not mean that we water things down or avoid addressing the real issues we are facing because it might offend or turn people away.

The truth will always offend, but our intentions and motivations should not be to do that.

Today is Palm Sunday when we remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on that donkey as people flooded the streets to meet him.

They shouted his praises

Laid outer garments and palms at his feet

They were calling him King

Then within a week they turned on him. This person they were claiming to follow as King became the object of their scorn.

They went from praising him to yelling “crucify him” in a matter of days. How does this happen?

Jesus didn’t turn out to be the King they thought he would be

He did things differently than they had expected

He asked too much.

Like those early followers we too so often want Jesus in our lives as long as what he says or asks of us isn’t too hard. Because as soon as we have to sacrifice, then all of the sudden the expectations of Jesus become suggestions that we can do with as we please.

Application

The remaining disciples eventually deserted Jesus at the Garden of Gethsemane. Mark 14:50 says very clearly that “then everyone deserted him and fled” when the guards came to arrest Jesus.

In that moment when Judas led the guards to Jesus, the disciples ran away (Matthew 26:47–50). Was it fear, panic, frustration? Maybe a mixture of everything, but we are all prone to panic and run during times of trouble.

So how do we prevent ourselves from doing this? What can we do as believers to make sure that when trouble comes or when Jesus does something contrary to what we hoped or expected him to do that we don’t run and abandon him like they did?

We need an anchor

Jeremiah 17:5-8 NLT 5 This is what the Lord says: “Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans, who rely on human strength and turn their hearts away from the Lord. 6 They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, in an uninhabited salty land.

7 “But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. 8 They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.

The world offers a lot of solutions to our problems. Usually these solutions seem like a quick fix in the midst of our trouble, but the quick fix rarely lasts, and in the end, usually causes us more pain.

The Bible says that we must be aware that the world’s solutions will ultimately drive a wedge between us and God. Instead we need to grow roots, that run deep into the ground that can anchor us when the storms of life come.

Without that anchor we will be blown back and forth and eventually split and collapse.

The only thing that will anchor us is God’s Word, but so few Christians read it and study it and know it. It is really easy to lead someone astray or to get someone to believe a lie that doesn’t first know the truth. It is the knowledge of the truth that protects us against being easily deceived.

Storms will come, but if you are anchored in Jesus and his word, you will not flee or abandon him when it gets hard like the disciples did. Instead you will dig in and trust him to get you through it.

Accept that it isn’t about you

This is so hard for so many of us to do. To set aside our own self interest and plans and preservation for the sake of another.

Our sinful nature fights us on this on all fronts. Jesus knew this was a struggle which is why he said in...

Matthew 16:24-25 NLT 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.

As long as you continue to believe the lie that this Christian life is all about your comfort and all about your happiness you will always run the risk of abandoning Jesus when things get hard.

But when we learn to embrace the trials and carry the cross that Jesus has put before us we will find that even when things get hard, rather than running away, we keep moving forward. In the words of Paul we press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

But that will never happen as long as it is about us.

Closing

Jesus, after spending years training, developing, and preparing his disciples found himself at the end of his life, in chains alone. Having been betrayed, denied, rejected, and abandoned by those who should have had his back he finds himself about to face the most difficult part of his journey.

The time for teaching had come to an end. The time for preparing had come to an end. Now all that lay before him was the cross. And to hear the rest of the story you need to come back on Friday for our service titled, It Is Finished.

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