Christ and Liverpool: An Authentic Disciple or Merely A Fan?

 

Versi Bahasa Indonesia dari tulisan ini sudah lebih dulu dimuat di WarungSaTeKaMu.org dengan judul Kristus dan Liverpool: Pengikut Sejati atau Penggemar Belaka?

The story of Liverpool, 2005–2020

It was June 2005. My favourite kid’s magazine reported Liverpool's victory over A. C. Milan in that year’s Champions League final. They had been down by 3 goals in the first half before scoring 3 goals in return in the second half and finally won the match and championship by a penalty shoot-out. The match is now remembered as one of the most inspiring comebacks in the history of association football. It was then that I became a fan of Liverpool Football Club, and have been ever since.

But I didn't always support them. Liverpool barely won any major competitions for the next 14 years. It's not that they'd never reached the finals or the top of the league table, but they almost always failed to eventually come out at the top. I must admit that during this barren spell, I was more often than not pessimistic of Liverpool's chance in various competitions and treated it like a normal club, not my favourite. My fandom for Liverpool only became as passionate as it had been when Jürgen Klopp took over as their coach in late 2015. In his first interview as the club manager, the Christian Klopp rallied all the members and fans that they “have to change from doubters to believers. Now.” He was also “pretty confident” that under his leadership, Liverpool could start winning titles within 4 years. Klopp’s statement would later fulfil itself when Liverpool once again won the Champions League in the 2018–2019 season and the English Premier League last June.

As a fan who has been watching Liverpool, I could say that their journey back to the top was not an easy one. Liverpool couldn’t recklessly spend hundreds of millions of dollars to recruit players as their main competitors in the League did. How did they build a competitive team, then? With an operation model which leverages on data science and sustainable financial management, Liverpool identified players whose game statistics and style of play match with Klopp’s gegenpressing strategy. They would only contract a player if he is deemed able to contribute to Liverpool’s play and if the player’s value is really worth it. One of the ways Liverpool balanced the outgoing transfer money was by releasing players who’d like to move to other clubs, of course with a price that was not cheap. Such a sustainable and effective recruitment strategy for the last few years enabled Klopp to drill his players in his favourite gegenpressing style. As a result, his Liverpool team played as a cohesive attacking unit from the very first second they entered the field. Klopp also mixed in higher ball possession to increase the effectiveness of their attack, which makes it hard for the opponents to defend from Liverpool’s assaults. All this they did for one purpose: to build sustainable success.

The story of Discipleship Month in my church, 2020

I hope you’d enjoy my brief sharing of my favourite football club above. Now we change our course to look at what was happening in my church, GKY Singapore, during about the same time when Liverpool was confirmed as the League champion in late June: the kick-off of Discipleship Month. This special event was organised by the Discipleship Focus Group to remind the congregation that the PURPOSE of our life is to be disciples of Lord Jesus, that each of us needs to understand where we now stand on our JOURNEY to Christ-likeness, and that as one body of Christ we are commissioned TOGETHER to disciple all nations.

The Working Committee translated these three goals into various church-wide activities and movements. For six weeks from early July, we invited the congregation to read devotionals and selected chapters from Kyle Idleman’s Not a Fan. We also created a Discipleship Month series in the church’s Instagram account to reach more people who followed this movement from social media. Discipleship Month reached its peak in the last three weeks of August, where in the Sunday service, God confirmed our identity as followers of Christ and showed how discipleship relates closely with His mission. After sharing about the event with a friend, she asked a question that I considered very crucial for me personally as part of the Working Committee, “So what is discipleship for you?” I was reminded to apply the very Truth I’d been reflecting over the last few months to myself, lest “after preaching [Lord Jesus’ call of discipleship] to others I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:27). My lunch break was almost over, so I could only reply to her briefly. In this writing, I will share my answer in the form of three lessons that I learned about following Jesus from my fandom of Liverpool and my experience of organising Discipleship Month in GKY Singapore.

My story of learning how to follow Jesus from Liverpool and Discipleship Month

After confirming that His disciples really knew who He is, “The Christ of God” (Lk. 9:20), Lord Jesus said to them (and us) all, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (v. 23).

#1. Discipleship is a commitment, not merely a decision, to follow Jesus Lord Jesus began His discipleship calling with an invitation, “come after Me”. Kyle Idleman in Not a Fan observes that this phrase is commonly used in a romantic context, “a pursuit that can easily consume our thoughts, our resources, and our energy”. Like a husband and wife who commit to work on their marriage, Lord Jesus invites His followers to follow and come after Him with all they’ve got. From my experience of being a fan of Liverpool, I could be considered failing in terms of this aspect for some years prior to Klopp’s arrival. That’s what fans do: when hard times come, many would back off and never return. Thoughts of doing so came many times in my mind when I was serving in the Discipleship Month Working Committee. My condition was rather unique: I was the youngest in the committee and it was only my first time serving the entire congregation as opposed to my usual age group-specific ministries, but I was appointed as the event coordinator. Serving with team members who were older than me was challenging. Various differences due to the age factor, such as working style, responsiveness, and rate of comprehension often frustrated and exhausted me; I felt like wanting to quit this ministry. Praise the Lord, for this selfish desire to go AWOL never translated into action from thought. Through my reflection on the phrase “come after Me” and listening to testimonies by many of the congregation members who were blessed by Discipleship Month activities, God brought me to see that this ministry was in the first place His blessing for me. I came to embrace it in His joy and was able to work with my team members with more patience and love. Such obstacles in both the workplace and ministry will definitely reappear in the future, but by the grace of the Lord, I hope to commit to persevere in following Jesus to the end. Imitating the example of Paul, I hold fast to the Biblical truth that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom. 5:3-5).

#2. Discipleship means reliance on the power of the Spirit, not on our own strength In my frustration and exhaustion over the Discipleship Ministry situation above, I often forgot that the Holy Spirit who lives in me also gives me the same power that raised Jesus from the dead (Rom. 8:11). I preferred to rely on my own strength, even though the first instruction that Lord Jesus gives for His followers in Luke 9:23 is to deny ourselves. There’s a reason why the apostles opened their letters by identifying themselves as a servant of Lord Jesus (2 Pet. 1:1; Jas. 1:1; Rom. 1:1): they realised how sinful they were and how glorious God is who saved them from the eternal death and separation from Him. “Denying ourselves” means realising completely that “[i]t is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20a), a life that “put[s] to death the deeds of the body” by the Spirit (Rm. 8:13). In the case of Liverpool, Klopp “denied himself” by admitting that he couldn’t transform his club into a competitive team by himself and rallied all the members and fans to work with him toward this goal. In the case of Discipleship Month, we had a few occasions where the Holy Spirit worked in every member of the Working Committee to share their own struggles in this ministry openly with one another. Through these heart-to-heart moments, the Spirit in us enabled us to appreciate each other’s strengths, make up for each other’s weaknesses, and be united to complete this ministry that God had entrusted us for His glory. Disciples who follow Jesus authentically know for sure that denying ourselves never brings us any losses due to “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Php. 3:8).

#3. Discipleship means growing deeper in the intimacy with and resemblance of Christ The next phrase in Lord Jesus’ call of discipleship tells us how to deny ourselves: by taking up our cross daily. Why did Jesus choose the cross that symbolised humiliation, suffering, and death for His followers? Because He Himself chose to deny Himself and take up His cross to obey the will of His Father (Mat. 26:39). Following Jesus means being conformed to His image (Rom. 8:29), even and especially in His death (Php. 3:10). Hence, we commit to take up our cross and die to ourselves, dying to all our desires, plans, and pursuits, to follow Lord Jesus every day. Kyle Idleman asserted, “When we become followers of Jesus, that is the end of us. … When we finally let go of our lives, we find real life in Christ.” Taking up my cross daily in my life now means discerning which commitments, both at work and ministry, that I need to prioritise so that I can really follow Lord Jesus with all I am. My busyness over the last few months encouraged me to discern the will of God for my life in the near future, especially after Discipleship Month would have ended. If the number of my commitments remains the same, I don’t think any amount of rest will be sufficient, no matter how integral my work and ministry are in my life. Like Liverpool’s selective recruitment and tactical development, I learned to evaluate the commitments that I have; are they helping me to enjoy and glorify God, or exhausting and drifting me further away from God instead? This also means that in the near future, I’m going to "retire" from several ministries that I’ve been working on for a few years back. I didn’t arrive at this decision easily and randomly; it took me months to think and pray for it. The decision that is the product of this lesson may sound heavy and tense, but I believe that it will eventually lead me to the joy of knowing Lord Jesus personally and being conformed to His image. Quoting C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, "Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in."

"JF" – my hope and legacy

The abbreviation in the back of my Liverpool jersey has a special meaning. Besides to save the printing cost and having a similar pronunciation with my nickname (“Jeff”), I realised while preparing this reflection that “JF” may also stand for Jesus’ Fan or Jesus’ Follower. With it serving as a strong reminder every time I look at my own name, I sincerely hope that I would live and die as an authentic follower of Christ, not merely a fan. And it is my hope and legacy for you as well, that from my testimony you may learn to live not as a fan of Jesus but as a completely committed follower of Him. For to fans Lord Jesus will declare, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness” (Mat. 7:23), but to His followers He would welcome them, “Enter into the joy of your Master” (Mat. 25:21, 23).

The grace of Lord Jesus be with you, soli Deo gloria.

Questions for reflection and application, adapted from the study guide of Not a Fan

1. Define your relationship with Jesus. Have you been His fan, His follower, or something else all this time? How do you feel about your answer?
2. What has following Jesus cost you?
3. Are there any areas of your life that are off-limits to Jesus?
4. If you suddenly died, and family and friends were asked for one thing to say about you, what do you believe they would say?