Are you a fan or a follower?
I’m not asking you any of these questions:
•
Do you go to church?
•
Are your parents or grandparents Christians?
•
Did you raise your hand at the end of a sermon one time?
•
Did you repeat a prayer after a pastor?
•
Do you own more than one Bible?
•
Have you ever appeared in a church directory?
•
Did you grow up going to VBS and/or church camp?
•
Is your ringtone a worship song?
•
When you pray are you able to come up with five or more synonyms for God?
Many are quick to say “Yes I’m a follower of Jesus,” but not sure we really understand what we are actually saying.

But what is a fan?
A fan is defined as an enthusiastic admirer. So, What are you a fan of?
Are you a fan of sports, music, ministry, church, your family? You can enthusiastically admire a sports player, a musician, money, things you own, and even ministry.
By this I mean you put these things before God and are more excited about them than you actually are about God and your relationship with Him.

How do we even figure out if we’re truly a follower or just a mere fan?
Let’s start with something called the DTR.
Define. The. Relationship.
A DTR talk is something that many people go through. It’s a talk you’ll have or have had with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, and it can be scary. The point of this talk is to find out where the relationship is going. You want to determine the level of commitment.

How would you define your relationship with Jesus? Is it exclusive? Or is it just a casual twice a week thing?
Think of it this way:
You go into a Starbucks and order yourself a coffee, and in the back of the room you see Jesus sitting at a table. With a smile you walk over and give him a greeting. After you have a seat, you feel a little self conscious, so you start to pray over your coffee. Jesus looks at you and stops you, and he says, “Alright, that’s enough. I want to know right here and right now where you want this to go. I want to know if you’re willing to give everything up for me without a second thought.”

In John 3 we read of a man by the name of Nicodemus. Nicodemus is a religious man, and he’s ready to take it to the next level with Jesus, but he knows that it will not be easy. He’s what you would call today a ‘secret admirer’. And he had a decision to make, that came down to choosing between his religion, or Jesus. You see, the respectable men of his religion found Jesus to be a liar and didn’t have anything to do with him. And Nicodemus was high up with these men. So he came to Jesus at night. Why? He came because he didn’t want the others to see.

But what Nicodemus didn’t understand was that you cannot follow Jesus without having him interfere with your life.

Most of us don’t mind if Jesus makes a change, but Jesus doesn’t want to do just a little bit of touching up here and there. He wants to turn your life completely upside down.

So, do you know about Jesus, or do you actually know him?
Take for instance my knowledge of Harry Potter. I can tell you where and when he was born, who his parents are, what his middle name is, he eye and hair color. I can tell you all of those things, but(if he were real) would I actually know him? No, of course not. If I saw him on the streets he would not recognize me and we would not be friends, because I only know about him.

In Matthew 15:8, it says “'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Just like the Pharisees, some of us commit our minds to knowing all about him, but we don’t bother to actually know him.

Fans tend to confuse knowledge for intimacy
Jesus cares more about us truly knowing him rather than knowing about him. Read Luke 7:44-46. In the end, the teachers ended up being the fans and the prostitute was the follower.

When was the last time you showed your love for Christ with reckless abandon, not caring who was around you?

Now let’s go back a bit to being a fan of things.
Is Jesus one of many, or your one and only?
It may be hard to figure this out, so I’ve gotten some questions for you.
•
For what do you sacrifice your money?;
For what you spend your money on the most will show the true desires of your heart.
•
When you’re hurt, where do you go for comfort?;
Who you’re truly following will be clear when you go to someone or something.
•
What disappoints or frustrates you the most?
Disappointment and frustration like this can show that something has become far too important in your life.
•
What is it that really gets you excited?
If it’s a football game or a video game, and not worship and praising God, you might want to reevaluate your priorities.

Luke 14:26 says this: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”

We are alled to love Jesus so much that the degree to which we love him is that our love for everyone else by comparison looks like hate. You can’t follow things or people and follow Jesus. Now, I know we’re not all perfect, but we’re called to be authentic.

Its okay to not be completely consumed by him instantly, but you should recognize the more he fills, less room there is for you.
Sounds hard, but a follower knows that it is not a path meant to go alone.

Jesus began Luke 14:26 with “If anyone . . .”
Anyone means everyone. It doesn’t have an asterisks beside it and it isn’t excluding anyone. It means everyone.

Rabbis went through long application processes to find their students. They did the rejecting. They did not ask for students, and their students were some of the brightest. Jesus was a rabbi, and he did something that no other rabbi would have ever done. He asked Matthew, a tax collector, to follow him, which opened him to rejection. See, in these times no one like tax collectors. They were the bill collectors and telemarketers on the other end of your phone line, demanding money.

Jesus said to Matthew, “Follow me”. And Matthew 9:9 says simply “…and Matthew got up and followed him.” No ifs. No ands. No buts. No “wait, let me grab my coat”. Nothing. He just did it.

We like to say we’re unique and authentic as a church and accept anyone.
Some churches are like car dealerships. Their advertisements have asterisks at the end of their slogans. “We welcome everyone and anyone!*”, where “everyone” means people who look like they have their lives together and “anyone” means people who have never struggled with addiction or divorce.

So who is invited to follow Jesus?
Anyone.
What about sexual past?
Anyone.
Okay, well how about addicts, or single mothers, or convicts?
Anyone. And he means Anyone.
Once we accept this invitation, must follow one hundred percent. No exceptions, no asterisks.

Some of us approach our commitment to Christ like something we can adjust. We’ll say things like, “I love Jesus- but don’t ask me to give up sex before marriage, forgive the person who wronged me, give to the needy, feed the homeless, travel to another country to help better the lives of others”.

The invitation of Jesus is “Give up everything”
We are, in all senses of the word, a slave to Jesus.
No possessions of our own
No rights
To deny yourself you give up everything you have to be a slave who denies himself to follow Jesus. Our right to “pursue happiness” is in direct conflict with our call to deny. A servant is someone who works for someone, who gets to go home on the weekend. But a slave? A slave is owned by someone. In the Bible, the word “LORD” is derived from the word “kurios” which translates into the name one would call a master or an owner. So, simply speaking, you can’t call Jesus ‘LORD’ without first calling yourself his slave.

Denying yourself and dying to yourself are the same.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
Dying to yourself might mean:
Spending lunch hour serving food to homeless
Instead of keeping it safe in convo with neighbor, bring up Jesus
Instead of taking kids to Disney, take them to Dominican Republic to help in feeding centers
Walking past an empty room in your house and asking God if there is an orphaned child in another country who should be sleeping there.

Do you think you can die to yourself today? Give up everything? Work, school, even family, to be a slave to Jesus?

Now I bring to you a call to action.
WHEREVER
Read Luke 9:57-58. In verse 57, a man says “I will follow you, wherever you go.” But in 58, Jesus is basically saying, “Hey dude, I’m homeless. So we may sleep under an overpass or in an alley. There’s no five star hotel on this trip.” Jesus points to a place that threatens the man’s comfort and security and asks him, “What about there?”.

What about at home?
Instead of:
Serving, you sit around
Being patient; you’re demanding of your spouse and children
Being encouraging ; you are constantly critical
Being a spiritual leader ; you are passive and apathetic in own home.
What about there?

What about at work?
You justify your greed by calling it ambition, rationalize your dishonesty as shrewd business, you stay quiet about your faith in your cubical and call it being tolerant.
The man in Luke 9 was happy until Jesus said “There”. Students of Rabbis followed their teacher everywhere he went. A popular saying that became of this was “May you be covered in his dust.”

If you follow Jesus, you won’t just end up covered in his dust, but his blood as well.

WHENEVER
When we’re asked to get serious, our most common answer is “tomorrow”.
We don’t actually get started until a tragedy strikes, which is okay, but why not start now?
We turn to him in desperation, but what about when you were happy?
He’s been shouting so you don’t get stuck in the Land of Tomorrow, and by the next “tomorrow” it’s already too late.

So don’t wait until it’s too late. Start NOW.

WHATEVER
Fans say: “ I’ll follow. Anything & everything, I give to you.”
Jesus points to the thing hiding behind your back and says “What about that?”
What about food, kids, money, job, addiction, your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend, school, your hobby?

Jesus will settle for nothing less than undivided attention and complete commitment. He wants you to expel more joy and energy in worshiping him than you do watching the big game.

A man who looks like the example Family Man puts his family first.
The fact that he put family first isn’t a testament to character, but evidence of foolishness. Putting your family ahead of following Jesus is not a good trade.

CALL TO ACTION
When Jesus invites you to follow, he wants you to start from current location.
He wants you to start right here, and right now.

Can you do that? Will you give up everything you hide behind your back, lay out all of your stains for him, deny yourself and die to yourself right here, right now, go where he calls, when he calls, no matter what the call is?

Be a follower, Not A Fan.