What Team Do You Follow?

1 John 4:16-21

 

 

Is it the Buckeyes, the Browns, the Bengals or maybe the Steelers? Football fans come in all sizes and shapes and wear their team’s colors to show it. They invest their hard earned money and their limited time to watch and cheer for their team. They might even put a decal on their car to proclaim their loyalty, or maybe a flag in their front yard. Whatever the case, you can tell from their actions what team they follow. That’s what John is talking about in these verses.

 

“If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.” 1 John 4:20-21 The Message

 

John wrote a lot about loving God and loving others. Because of this, you might picture him as an all-around nice guy. After all, he was an apostle of Jesus and was referred to as “the disciple who Jesus loved”. He was with Jesus during the most important occasions like the Mount of Transfiguration and the Garden of Gethsemane. But there was another side to John.

 

When Jesus called John and his brother James to follow him, he referred to them as the “Sons of Thunder”. It wasn’t because they were meek and mild. John was a fisherman. He worked in the family business with his hands. He was an action kind of guy who sometimes spoke without thinking.

 

On one occasion the disciples were arguing about who was the greatest. Shortly after this, James and John asked Jesus if they could be at his right and his left when he came to power. They even solicited their mother to lobby for them. Another time, they wanted to call fire down from heaven to destroy a Samaritan village. From these examples, it is hard to tell just who John is following.

 

From the time when John was a “rough around the edges fisherman”, to arguing about being the greatest, to wanting to call down fire on others; he changed. Jesus changed John so that his greatest weakness became his greatest strength. I hope and pray that Jesus does the same for me and for you so that others can tell what team we follow.