If you would please turn within your Bibles to John chapter 15 beginning at verse 16. Jesus tells the disciples, ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another.
If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. And if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my father. But the word that is written in their law must be fulfilled. They hated me without a cause.
But when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me, and you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. I have said all of these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.
And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we open your word and we hear you speak. Your Holy Spirit dwells inside us, witnessing to the truth of your word, witnessing to the truth of you. Help us to believe. Help us to trust your word and to trust you. And to know and believe that when you say something shall be that it shall.
And believe that when you say that something shall be, that it does work for the good of those who love you. And it does further your purposes and it will somehow be good for your kingdom. Help us to be more heavenly minded, looking ahead into the future and less focused on the pains of the present, trusting in you as our eternal hope. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
Executive fiat. Jesus exercises that right because he is God the son, the logos, who theos andros. Jesus is the king. Therefore he’s allowed to choose whomever he wills, whenever he wills, and however he wills. Jesus has the right to appoint and command us while we do not have the right to deny him, to refuse him, or to disobey him.
We may think that we do, and we often do act like we do, but we do not and we cannot effectively do it because Jesus is the sovereign God and what he says goes. Period. What Jesus wants, Jesus gets. And that is a point which John has been making across the whole gospel through his recording of Jesus’s I am statements and his self-identification with the Lord, and by his record of all the many miraculous wonders and signs, powerful signs that demonstrated his divinity.
Remembering them, Jesus said, ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. And these things I command you so that you will love one another.’
Once again, he’s asserting his divine sovereignty, reminding us that he has a divine purpose and a plan for us. Jesus was explaining that he has appointed particular purposes for us as his disciples, as his friends, and as his brothers and sisters, united with him, commanding us three purposes.
That we shall bear good fruit that shall abide, that we shall petition the Father, interceding for others and the world in accord with Jesus’s will, so that then he may answer our faithful prayers with his divine yes, and that we shall love one another as he has loved us self-sacrificially, and that we shall love outsiders as he has loved us and them.
See, these are the same purposes that the father sent his son into the world to achieve. And so we believe that we have been chosen, called, and appointed to share in Christ’s own purposes through our union to him. And the redemption and salvation that Jesus would soon be purchasing for us would enable us to achieve those purposes.
So whenever we are working towards those purposes in faith, we are proving the closeness of our union to Christ. That is why I’ve previously said that as far as the world should be concerned, Christians are as Christ. We may as well be Jesus himself in their eyes. We should be so closely identified with him that the world will respond to us as it would respond to him.
And we should also be so closely identified with him that we will treat the world and everyone in it how Jesus would treat them, loving them as Jesus loved and loves us and them. But there is a negative consequence to our union with Christ that we rarely pause to consider as deeply as we should.
Because when we love the world and those in it as Jesus loved and loves them, the world will respond to our love by hating us just as it hated and hates the Lord Jesus Christ. And the practical effect of our union in Christ is that we should be engaging with the world just like Jesus engaged with it. And so we should expect the world to respond to us just as it responded to Jesus.
Now, after emphasizing the Christian’s unity into himself, our unity of purpose in the world, our unity of will before the father in heaven, Jesus explained, ‘If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.’
And when we consider what is known of church history and what the gospels describe happening to Jesus at the hands of the Romans, the Jews, the, you know, these conditional if-then statements seem kind of awkward, don’t they? Because the reality is a matter of when, not if.
Except the true conditional is not if the world will hate Christians, but if a person is a Christian, then the world will hate them. The question is not if the world will hate but whether if a person is a Christian united to Jesus Christ. And that promisory statement is one of the most important texts for a Christian to remember because it helps us to identify whether we actually are a Christian, whether our profession of faith in Jesus is proven true.
If the world hates you, meaning if you are united to me, if you are like me, if you do what I do, then know that the world has hated me, hated Jesus before it hated you. So when a Christian is being hated by the world and suffering differing degrees and forms of persecution, whether it’s discrimination, animosity, verbal vitriol, or physical violence, then we must remember that there is nothing new under the sun.
And remember that the world treated Jesus in the same bad way first. That should comfort us because now we’re not surprised by it. Instead, whenever we personally suffer such things, it should encourage us because it helps to verify our own Christlikeness. And if you were of the world, if you belong to Satan, to sin, and were subject to his dark power, the world would love you as its own.
But because you’re not a believer, because you do not belong to Satan and are no longer a slave to sin, being redeemed and regenerate, Jesus chose you from out of the world for himself, taking you away from the dominion of Satan and placing you into his eternal kingdom. Remember, therefore, the world hates you. It hates you because it cannot have you.
It hates you because it lost you. It hates you because you were snatched away from it and are now identified with the one who rescued you. This is why it’s another reason why it’s so important for us to believe that Jesus has sovereignly chosen us from out of the world according to his merciful grace alone.
Because remember before we were saved, we did not recognize our own bondage. We were unaware of any option but for the sinful status quo that we lived under. We did not know that there was a choice. So we could never choose anything else. And when Jesus chose us, our whole universe expanded because then knowing the alternative and recognizing this fundamental difference between them, we responded to that choice of God by choosing the light in faith and the hope of life because the darkness of sin, its promise of death, and the domination of Satan is not a reasonable option or a positive consideration.
See, we needed someone to pull us out of the darkness that bound us because we neither knew that there was a way out nor knew the way out. Then Jesus continued, ‘A servant is not greater than his master, and if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.’
Now remember, while Jesus named us as his friend, we are still also his servants. We are not greater than Jesus. And thinking or assuming that we might be really is a functional form of idolatry. Jesus is our savior and friend, but he’s also our Lord and Master. We remain his servants. We are his brothers and sisters, his younger siblings, but he still remains our king and we owe him our allegiance.
So we are not better than him. We are not greater than he is and we do not deserve better, and we certainly may not expect anything better than what he received. So if Jesus was persecuted by the Jews, the Romans, the crowds and the civil authorities with all of that above representing the world, then Jesus here is definitively promising us they will also persecute you.
Definitive. Because we know that they did more than just persecute. So we should expect to be similarly persecuted, hated, feared, abused, attacked, slandered, denigrated, tortured, and even killed by the world. We cannot expect to receive better treatment at the hands of the world than Jesus received. In fact, we really should expect to receive even worse treatment than Jesus.
But Jesus, he does not only promise us doom and gloom. He also promises us that there will be things that are positive, telling us that if they kept my word, they also will keep yours. See, he gives us hope that Christians that we will recognize one another, that Christians will be able to gather together and work together as Christians cooperating in good works of charity and love.
See, he gives us hope for the church that God’s appointed ordained leaders, his apostles, presbyters, elders, deacons, and servants will remain faithful and obedient and shall continue to lead Christ’s disciples and help raise up future leaders as he preserves and perseveres his church in the world while also keeping us apart from the.
There is no shame for us in the persecutions that will come. Jesus reminds us that the things we shall suffer are not our fault, though they will be a consequence of our true faith. We are not to blame and we are not to accept blame for the suffering of Christians because Jesus warned us that all these things they will do to you on account of my name because they do not know him who sent me.
Firmly placing the responsibility, the fault, blame, and guilt for the suffering of Christians onto the world. The rightful blame for our sufferings is placed on the world’s hatred for God and for Jesus Christ. And the Lord shall add all of these abuses and sinful transgressions against him through the persons of his saints to Satan’s account of evil.
But when Jesus said, ‘They do not know him who sent me,’ he did not excuse them. They do not hate us or act out of ignorance but out of true knowledge because they do know God. They must know that he is because you cannot hate something or someone that you do not know exists.
And they know that their infernal master hates him. So they implicitly understand that by their union into him, they are the enemies of God. So they have no excuse and they deserve the fullness of condemnation for their willing collaborative wickedness.
And Jesus explained why the wicked worldly are so justly condemnable, saying, ‘If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my father also. And if I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.
But now they have seen and hated both me and my father.’ The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. for sin. Seizing an opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me.
The incarnation of God the Son became the full and final revelation of God. The unignorable fact of his presence put the world on notice that the end was coming and the judgment of Satan is at hand and that his condemnation was righteous, just, and inevitable. So they know.
And Jesus, as the fulfillment of the law and the fulfiller of the law, is a mirror that reveals our own sinfulness and guilt. His perfect obedience proves both the possibility of obedience and our own inability to obey. But when the helper comes, the another paraclete whom Jesus would ask the father to send to us, the Holy Spirit, he will bear witness about Jesus.
And he testifies to the truth of Jesus to the elect by his indwelling presence and by his empowerment of the apostles to do their miraculous and extraordinary signs that they did among the early church. And through his presence now, empowerment of ordinary believers with an assorted variety of our spiritual gifts so that we may then produce good spiritual fruit.
Because this paraclete, he originally came so that his chosen apostles would bear witness to Jesus, who he is, what he has done, and proclaim what he shall do when he returns. As Jesus told his disciples, you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning.
But the gifted presence of the Holy Spirit, the paraclete was not limited to just the apostles or just to the early church. He’s the gift for every elect person, to every Christ follower, to everyone who is a Christian truly. And just as he was gifted to the apostles to empower them to do their divinely appointed purposes, to encourage them in their faith, and to preserve them in steadfastness, so too, he’s been gifted to all believers ever since Jesus rose from the grave. He’s gifted to us.
But there is something about the Holy Spirit that we rarely consider: that without him or his help, we actually would not be able to fulfill any of our ministerial vocations or achieve our Christian purpose. It’s the Holy Spirit. He is the person of the Trinity that is most active and involved in the life of every believer.
So if we are faithful, then we know that he is and shall always be right beside us, working alongside us in accordance with the divine will, purpose, and plan, that without his constant help and encouragement as our paraclete, our sinfulness and human limits would cause us to quickly give up and surrender the devices of Satan, returning to bondage and defeat.
Without the help of guidance from and cooperation with the Holy Spirit, the church of Jesus Christ would have never achieved anything of note or consequence in the world. Then Jesus gave us one final encouragement for this issue, saying, ‘I’ve said all of these things to you to keep you from falling away. I’ve said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you.
I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you.’ So once more, Jesus told them and us about the future that we must expect as his followers. He told us in advance so that we may understand that even these things are a part of God’s plan. He told us in advance so that we will not be surprised but be comforted remembering that Jesus is also not surprised.
So that we may know to turn to him and his Holy Spirit for help because God will give us more than we can handle. He gives it to us as an opportunity for faithful, steadfast reliance upon himself and his power rather than our own strength. He told us so that we won’t fall away.
Jesus said, ‘They will put you out of the synagogues,’ warning them that they will be excommunicated from their ancestral religion, that they shall become social outcasts and pariahs. That they will lose their cultural identity and be rejected and abandoned by every social group that has been important to them, family, friends, and neighbors.
Just as John previously told us about the man who was born blind to whom Jesus gave sight on the Sabbath said that he also suffered this consequence for his confession that Jesus is the Christ. And Jesus said, ‘Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think that he is offering service to God, and they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me,’ warning them that by following him faithfully, it will cost them their lives.
He foretold about the tragic irony that would be found in their deaths that those who murder them would be believing that they’re actually doing God’s work when they’re really doing Satan. While those who die in faithfulness will be dying as witnesses, as martyrs to God’s truth, and that their death will truly be in God’s service.
See, the disciples, they were duly warned about what was coming, and they continued to remain faithfully on Christ’s path. The early church was duly warned and they saw such things play out in real-time and they still chose to continue faithfully following the way of Jesus Christ, the way of faith by trusting in God alone for their salvation, forgiveness, redemption from sin, and as their hope for eternal life.
This faith through the help of the paraclete and by their union into Christ as the true vine allowed them to courageously stand and face the worst of everything that the world could put them through. And while many of them did die, their witness and their testimony fueled the flames of revival and renewal across the Roman Empire and the known world in history, in spite of every possible form of worldly opposition.
And when we read the stories about Christian martyrs, there is one element that they all seem to have in common: that those who were condemned to die, they died in the joy of the Lord and sometimes even with the sense of a courageous smile on their face. When Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna and a disciple of John the Apostle and evangelist, was condemned to public execution, the Roman proconsul offered him one last opportunity to recant his faith and reject Jesus, encouraging him to swear by the fortune of Caesar, repent and say, ‘Away with the atheists.’
But Polycarp, gazing with a stern countenance on all the multitude of the wicked heathen then in the stadium and waving his hand toward them while with groans he looked up to heaven, he said, ‘Away with the atheists.’ Because from the Roman perspective, we Christians were considered atheists because we deny their whole pantheon, all of their gods.
When Hugh Latimer, the Puritan bishop of Worcester alongside Nicholas Ridley, was burned at the stake on the orders of Queen Mary, his final words were, ‘Be of good comfort, Mr. Ridley, and play the man, for we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England, as I trust never shall be put out.’
What a joy and what a privilege it is to die having your faith in Jesus Christ confirmed by the world’s hatred. What is a better final encouragement for our hope in his promise of the resurrection and life eternal?
So, do you really believe that the world hates Jesus Christ and Christians? Or do you think that Christians are somehow favored, privileged, and enjoy a position of priority in the world? Even in our present socially progressive modern age, does the world still hate him? And everyone that’s grafted into his vine?
And if the world does still hate him, if the world does still hate us, does its hatred manifest against us with an active heat or is it more of a cold and quiet aggression? The kingdom of Christ on earth is like a strong town, but it is surrounded and besieged by innumerable foes. The age of Christendom is over. If it ever actually was anything more than just a facade or a dream, all we have to do is look at the world we live in and consider our cultural moment.
Do we live in a Christian nation? No. Of course not. Because the first amendment to our constitution has the anti-establishment clause which says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Do we live in a nation where the majority of citizens are professing Christians, much less practicing Christians? That’s clearly a no as well. I mean, most popular TV shows are not Christian and many, if not most, express and promote values that are contrary to scripture’s command in the moral law, even by characters that are often labeled as Christian.
And such characters often get portrayed as being bigots, as being backwards or socially regressive, as being old-fashioned in a negative sense, or they are lampooned and made to appear comical and unserious. Or we can consider the commonly used curse words, vulgarities, and invectives that fill the cultural vernacular. I mean, the name of Jesus is used as an invective while the Lord is vainly invoked as a curse of condemnation, especially by people who do not claim to be Christian.
But the name of no other religious figure is used in a similar manner, is it? I mean, no one cries out Muhammad when they hit their thumb with a hammer or stub their toe. No one asks Siddhartha Buddha to damn something. But the reality is these vulgarities and curses only have the power that’s given to them. Meaning that by invoking Jesus and God in their cursing, these people are implicitly admitting to and confessing God’s truth and power and authority to carry out such curses if it’s God’s will to do so.
Does our culture find any other faith apart from Christianity acceptable to mock? I mean, how many people publicly mocked the Christian faith of Charlie Kirk when he was killed? How many people blamed his murder? Even justified his being murdered on his Christian faith. Meanwhile, has anybody publicly mocked the Islamic religion, the conservative and orthodox faith of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following his death last week?
How many people have blamed his death or justified it on his religion? People have blamed it on the crimes against humanity that he committed and ordered, blaming it on the abuses of his oppressive regime. But the many varied public mouthpieces out there choose to not connect the dots and present the ultimate conclusion that all of his murderous activities were just the ordinary and expected spiritual fruit of his satanic religion.
The Ayatollah lived out his faith just as much as Charlie Kirk did. The only difference was the faith. Or consider how the prohibition on images of Muhammad is defended, such as the public appeals that went out not to blame Muslims for the 2015 attack on the French newspaper Charlie Hebdo after they published a cartoon of Muhammad. But it is considered to be an acceptable form of protesting immigration policy by depicting a baby Jesus in a nativity scene with his hands zip-tied and surrounded by ICE agents.
What do these things say about our culture? Is it clearly? It is clearly acceptable to kick Christianity and Christians to marginalize us, our values, and our opinions. But that’s just at the highest level of perspective. What about in your own life in your present or your past circumstances? What about here in Mansfield or across the state of Ohio?
What do you see happening around you? And what are you experiencing personally? Have you ever experienced any negativity, animosity, discrimination, or hatred because of your Christian faith? Because of your profession, or because of your Christian activities? Perhaps you’ve had to choose between a Wednesday evening Bible study and some other activity, or between a sports event on Sunday or Sunday worship.
Since Sundays and Wednesday nights are no longer socially sacred, perhaps you’ve lost friends and social groups or become estranged from certain family members instead of compromising your Christian convictions by refusing to affirm someone’s deviant sexuality or deceitful gender identity claim, or by refusing to encourage, enable, or affirm someone’s choice to abort their baby.
Or by choosing celibacy and abstinence rather than engaging in risky activities, or because you chose to help someone that is different from you, whom other people wrongly believed was unworthy or undeserving of mercy and grace. Perhaps you’ve been bullied or teased because of your faith and your prudish values. Perhaps you’ve lost out on a job opportunity.
Perhaps you’ve been sidelined or marginalized and had your advice and opinion ignored because of your faith, because of what you believe about morality, about reality, and justice. See, those are all examples of persecution as much as what Christians are experiencing in Nigeria presently. Just persecution of a different sort and a lesser degree.
And while I sincerely doubt that most any of us are at much risk of suffering such extremes as being murdered on account of our faith in Jesus, it is still within the realm of human possibility because of the world’s hatred. So as faithful Christians, we need to continue praying for the world and the salvation of sinners, praying for our enemies, and asking God to transform their hearts to drive out their hatred and fill them with love instead.
But we also have to remember that Jesus said, ‘I’m sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.’ So it’s wise for us to also be prudent and cautious in taking care of ourselves and our particular Christian community just as the church has had to do before the emperor Constantine.
We don’t need to be unnecessarily provocative because the gospel and the person of Jesus is provocative enough. So we should be careful about our safety but also mindful that when the worldly dangers come, when the world’s hatred for us manifests and comes for us, that it is our opportunity to allow our faithfulness to be on display to prove our confession true and acknowledge Christ before all.
Amen. For everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my father who’s in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my father who’s in heaven.
So don’t worry about the world’s hatred or the world’s hatred for our Lord and Savior. It’s to be expected. We should expect and welcome the presence of this hatred as a confirmation for us, as the opportunity for us to stand as witnesses for Christ. Even if it may mean expressing the greatest possible act of courage.