John 15:18-16:4 The Coming Hatred WC
McCarter
Introduction
It is a
natural, human desire to have everyone love you. No one likes to be disliked,
ignored, hated, or worse, persecuted. This is what high school and college
students spend all of their time doing, trying to fit in with the crowd. Do you
remember those days? Of course, adults fall into the same trap of trying to
please everyone so that no one dislikes them.
I think many
Christians are suffering from this tendency in relation to the world. I’m as
guilty as anyone when it comes to letting people know that I am not some kind
of quacky, legalistic Christian. If I come to visit you, I am not going to be
wearing a three piece suit and carrying a Bible. At best I’ll wear a nice shirt
and dress pants, but you may even see me in jeans and a t-shirt. If we need a
word from the Lord, I have hidden a lot of His word in my heart for those occasions.
I’m a normal guy who’s trying to live the Christian faith I believe in. But,
when Christians are trying everything they can to fit in with the world, we
have a problem. I heard a well-known and respected pastor say yesterday that he
could deal with people who say they are done with Christianity, and they are
going to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow they die. What is more difficult
to deal with is a Christian who wants to eat, drink, and be merry and call that
Christianity. As the pastor said, “That is dangerous” (Piper). Why is it that
so many Christians want to fit in with everyone around them? They do not want
to be ignored, despised, hated, mistreated, or oppressed, but that is not the
way we have been called to live. We have been saved out of darkness and
welcomed into the wonderful light of Christ in order to shine like stars in the
crooked and perverse generation.
Despite our
yearnings to be accepted, Christ promises in today’s passage that we will be
hated by the world. Now, that does not mean that we should pursue opposition or
incite hostility. We should do everything we can to live peaceably and quietly waiting
for the Lord’s return, but inevitably there will be those who do not like us
simply because of the fact that we belong to Christ.
READ Scripture- This is the Word of God
The World Hates You (18-20)
There is no
doubt that Jesus uses the “If the word hates you” line to point out that the
world “will” hate them. The remainder of the context, and the history of the
church, proves that true. Just like Christians are supposed to love their
brothers and sisters, so too the world loves its own. We see this played out in
society today. Irreligious people band together. It seems that almost everyone
advocated for gay rights these days, even some professing Christians. We know
that most people are not gay, so why is that? The world loves its own. Atheists
are now even starting their own “churches.” There was an article in the
newspaper not too long ago about this. Why do they band together? Why do they
support one another? Why is the media united in opposition against evangelical
Christianity? The world loves its own.
This is
something that we need to come to terms with – Jesus says point blank, “The
world hates you.” Take a minute to swallow that down. Why is it that the world
hates us? There are a couple of things named here which are closely related.
First, we are not of the world because Christ has chosen us out of the world.
We have been chosen by the King, and we pledge our allegiance to Him, but the
rest continue in their rebellion against Him. Rebels despise loyalists.
The second reason we are given for the world’s hatred of us is the fact that we
are followers of a certain Master who they have already persecuted to the point
of death. The rebels will respond to us the way they did our Master, that is,
some will accept our message (very few) and others will reject the message and
persecute us (most everyone). We are in the minority by far. Get used to it.
They Do Not Know Him (21-25)
The world
will not oppose you or persecute you because of you as a person. They will do
so because of Jesus. They hate Jesus. They do not know Him. They do not know
the One who sent Him, God the Father. You belong to Him. They lashed out
against Him and put Him to death, although He was raised from the dead. He has
ascended back to the Father, but we are still in this world. We are not His
visible representatives. They lash out at Him by lashing out at us.
Jesus says
that the world would have no sin if it weren’t for Him. It is not that the
world was in sinless perfection prior to His arrival, but Jesus exposed their
sin. The greatest of their sin, the culmination of it, and the most condemning
thing that Christ exposed was the world’s rejection of God and His plan of
redemption. As the Apostle Paul said in Acts 17 in Athens, “Truly, these times
of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent. . .
.” There is now no excuse.
How sad it
is that the Jews own Scriptures predict and condemn their negative response to
God’s redemptive plan. People who were so intent on keeping every letter of the
Law ironically do so by rejecting the Messiah of promise. It is ironic and
pitiful for them.
Bearing Witness to Christ (26-27)
Jesus
mentions the Holy Spirit again here because it is the Spirit who will help the believer
to handle the pressures of the world, the coming persecution. It is the Spirit
who will testify of Jesus and help the disciples to bear witness to the truth
about Jesus. That is why He is called the Spirit of Truth. The Holy Spirit
gives a faithful and accurate testimony concerning Jesus. The disciples could
do the same, with the help and counsel of the Spirit, because they had been
with Jesus from the beginning of His public ministry. The Spirit and the
disciples would both bring to light the same Christ and the same message of
Good News. Yes, the Spirit will bear witness to Christ, but also “there is a responsibility
resting on all Christians to bear witness to the facts of saving grace”
(Morris, 607). It is our responsibility and privilege to share the news about
Jesus Christ as well. We should pray that the Lord would give us opportunities
to make Him known, that we would recognize those opportunities, and that we
would boldly take advantage of those times.
That You May Not Stumble (1-4)
Jesus gives
another reason for saying these things which is that they may not stumble. This
word “stumble” can be understood to mean “go astray,” but there are also
elements of surprise and the sense of being trapped. Jesus tells His disciples
these things so they are not caught off guard or find themselves in a trap and
end up in apostasy, i.e. losing their faith. We cannot even imagine the
hardship they would face for believing on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the same is true for thousands of believers around the world today.
Jesus gives
them a preview of what would come and says that they would be put out of
synagogues and even killed “in service of God.” We know this to be true even
from our own biblical record. Saul of Tarsus, who became the Apostle, was one
of the fiercest persecutors of the early church. He was busy dragging off men
and women from their houses and synagogues and committing them to prison. He
was consenting to the deaths of many including Stephen, the first recorded martyr.
He did it all thinking that he was being obedient to the will of God. That is
terrifying. Yet, the same is happening today all around the world. There are
those who go out seeking to harm and even murder Christians in the name of
“God.” Please pray for your brethren around the world. Pray that they will not
be made to stumble, but will receive the distress in Jesus’ name. And prepare
yourself for persecution to come.
When the
persecution came the disciples would remember what Jesus told them. He didn’t
have to say this before because He was with them. While Jesus was with them He
could absorb the attacks of the adversaries and provide guidance for His
disciples. Now He is leaving. They must be prepared.
Conclusion and Christian Application
This message
could almost be prophetic. I am not a prophet, Jesus already said this a long
time ago, but there seems to be no misgivings on how the cultural tide is
rolling. We are no longer living in a culture that reinforces Christian values
to any extent. We are going to face more opposition in coming years than we
ever have in our history as a nation. Christian people need to be ready,
especially the younger folks. Are we going to band together to live this
Christian life, or are we going to disband because of the pressure we will
face? Let me encourage you to make a resolution today before we face the
pressure as to whether you will side with the Lord Jesus or the hateful, lost
world. If you are ready to pledge your allegiance to Christ and be united with
Him, there is a proper response to the Gospel. You must repent of your sins,
put your faith in Christ, and be baptized in order to be united with His death
and resurrection.
(1) If you are abiding in Christ, you
will face opposition.
(2) Do not be surprised by opposition
and/or suffering. Christ has said that we will all face it. He has gone before
us and suffered in our place to pay the penalty for our sins. We are not
greater than our Master. We must walk the same path that He has walked which is
to glory by way of suffering. The Apostle John said this plainly in 1 John 3:13,
“Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you.”