Fan Or Follower - Which Jesus Am I Following? Series

Fan or Follower

Which Jesus am I following?

John 6:30-69

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Expectations

Have you ever been disappointed?

Of course you have. We all have at times.

But have you thought of why you were disappointed?

Maybe someone didn’t do what you thought they would do.

Or maybe, things did not turn out the way you imagined in your head.

Either way, you were disappointed because you had a different expectation than what actually happened.

Now we all have expectations, and we all have expectations of other people, especially those we are in relationships with. This is normal.

But I think it is good that we examine our expectations every so often. If we don’t we find ourselves disappointed more often because we may have improper expectations.

For example, if I have expectations that my wife will cook a home cooked meal every night and my wife expects that I will take her out to eat every night, we are both going to be disappointed. Not because either expectation is right or wrong, but because we are expecting different things.

Now these expectations can inadvertently create false images of the person we are in a relationship with.

When that person does not act in accordance with our image and with the expectations we have established in our minds, it can have bad consequences for the relationship.

We see friendships ruined, or divorces take place, all because the person we have created in our head was not the same person as the one in real life.

Spiritual expectations of Jesus

Now this is true, not only in our daily lives, but in our Spiritual lives as well.

Many people come to have expectations of what Jesus will do if we are in relationship with Him. Today we are going to look at some of the expectations people had of Jesus, and consider our own expectations and see which Jesus we are following, the real Jesus, or the one we have developed in our heads.

I am going to ask you to turn in your Bibles to John 6:25.

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We are finishing up a series that we began 4 weeks ago called “not a fan.”

In this series, we have been looking at differences between being a fan of Jesus and being his follower.

We have been asking questions to help us determine where we are and why we are following.

When we started this series, we looked at the feeding of the 5000, and now we are going to look at what transpires right after that miracle and examine ourselves to see who it is we are actually following.

In the text today we are going to see people who were “following” (I put that in quotes), at least they thought they were following Jesus, but Jesus brought them to a point of crisis of belief about whom they were really following, the real Jesus, or the Jesus of their expectations, in which case they would turn out to be only fans of the Jesus they expected.

So, just to get us up to this point, Jesus has just fed 15K to 20K people and then went to the other side of the lake. The people are looking for him the next morning and realize he went to the other side and they head over there to find him.

And in verse 25 it continues,

John 6:25-34

25 When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"

26 Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. 27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

28 Then they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"

29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."

30 So they asked him, "What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? 31 Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ’He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’"

32 Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

34 "Sir," they said, "from now on give us this bread."

Ok, I want to pause here for a moment.