The Hated
Notes
Transcript
Introduction: We want to be loved. We want people to like us. So we do things to please others. So here is what the AI says about being more likeable: focus on being genuinely interested in others, practice active listening, and show empathy. Be positive, share a genuine smile, and remember people’s names. Build rapport through shared interests and open body language also helps. A more detailed breakdown says:
Show genuine interest - be curious, listen actively, mirror body language and find common ground.
Be positive and approachable - Smile, positive body language, be optimistic, be mindful of your tone.
Be yourself and be authentic - don’t try to be someone else, embrace your quirks, be vulnerable.
Remember the details - Use names (the right names), Remember details, give sincere compliments.
Be helpful and considerate - offer help, be mindful of others, be reliable.
The idea is to make people like us. Is that even something we can do? Along with this we do things to stay out of trouble or to keep from getting hurt. We never disagree with people and we certainly don’t tell them something they don’t want to hear. No matter how all of this goes you may never really be liked by a lot of the people around you. At least according to this passage it won’t happen if you are authentic.
This passage says that we will be hated.
Scripture: John 15:18-27
18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.
20 “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
21 “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
23 “He who hates Me hates My Father also.
24 “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.
25 “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,
27 and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
Transitional Sentence: Even though we want to be loved and we work hard at it we are actually hated.
18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
Does it ever feel like the world hates you? Do you fit in? Do you feel at home? Hatred towards Christ Jesus drives the world to persecute His disciples.
world system — the people constituting the world whose values, beliefs, and morals are in distinction and rebellion to God’s.
to hate — to dislike intensely; feel antipathy or aversion towards.
Because Jesus is an exact representation of the values, beliefs and morals of God the world hates Him. World hates because it belongs to sin and death. The world belongs to Satan, the adversary, the god of this world.
3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Not every nonbeliever persecutes Christians but Christianity is the number one group for being persecuted worldwide.
(Picture of Open Doors World watch list...)
50 nations with the highest level of persecution. In some of these nations it is illegal to talk about Jesus, illegal to try and convert someone to Jesus and illegal to believe in Jesus. The world hates Christ Jesus and it hates those who follow Him.
19 “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.
If you are of the world you won’t be persecuted for following Jesus. But if you are only in the world then you will be persecuted. Which are you?
But how does the world know you are a Christian? Remember last week. They will know you are Christians by your love. Your love for God, your love for your neighbor and your love for each other. So you are not of the world. You were chosen. Jesus chose you. He chose you out of the world. Big Gum ball machine - Gum ball is chosen out of the machine. Set aside, holy, no longer of this world. New kingdom of light.
13 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son,
Because we are not of the world we are different. We will act differently. Our actions will show our love and point us out as Christians and so we will be hated. We will be hated because we are not of the world - we are simply in the world.
20 “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
The word - Matthew 10:24
24 “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.
Slave greater than master, student greater than teacher. In that culture and even today the slave was not treated like the master or the student like the teacher. They were treated entirely differently. The greater was revered and treated well and the lower was treated poorly or even abusively. The world system takes care of it’s own.
So, since they persecuted Jesus - they will also persecute you. You won’t be special and avoid it, unless the world sees you as one of their own. If you don’t stand out as a Christian...
If they listen to Me - they will listen to you. There were a lot of people who didn’t listen to Jesus. They refused, they stayed in the dark and avoided the light. After Jesus was gone they avoided the Apostles too, they even persecuted them.
Now, if they are being drawn to the Father and are hearing Jesus they will hear our words as well. Never the less, we must continue to tell them about Jesus.
21 “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.
They will persecute us because we follow Him. His go by His name - they persecute us - they persecute Him. It’s all because they don’t truly know God. Many who persecute Christians know a god, like Allah. But he isn’t the father of our Lord and Savior. He is the father of lies. This is exactly what was happening in the beginning when a man named Saul was persecuting the church. He thought what he was doing for and in the name of Jehovah, but he didn’t truly know Jehovah. Here is a part of his story that shows him persecuting Jesus because he was persecuting the church.
Acts 9:3-4
3 As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him;
4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”
Persecuting a Christian is persecuting Jesus.
22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
Them - the religious leaders, the Jews. They thought they were doing the right thing. After all that’s the way it has been for as long as they know. — Don’t touch poison ivy - don’t know until someone tells you. He told them, He showed them.
So what does Jesus mean? Jesus is speaking of the persecution of Christians that will grow out of ignorance. Such persecutors are guilty because they heard Christ and their ignorance is the result of their rejection of His Words. To not be guilty of sin does not mean all sin, but the sin of failing to know about Christ and His disciples that would lead to this persecution. It is that sin in particular that He has in mind, of which they are guilty because Christ had clearly spoken to the Jews. And to hate Christ and His own is to hate the Father too. Again, the two are inseparably linked. They have the words of Christ, but they ignore them and so they sin.
And now after almost 2,000 years. It is the same. Those who persecute Christians do it because they have rejected His words. They do it because the gospel is veiled to them and they walk in disobedience to God.
23 “He who hates Me hates My Father also.
It’s a family thing. This would be hard for the religious leaders who believe in one God and don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah. They think everything they do is for the love of the Father, for the love of God.
The Son carries the family name, the son is a representative of the father. The son is the heir of the estate. The son carries the authority of the father in all business transactions. If you hate the son then you hate the father simply because of His relationship with the father.
When someone hates Jesus it reflects on God, Jesus is the Son of God.
24 “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.
No one else has ever done the things that Jesus did. He made the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk and He set the captives free. He showed them the truth and how to follow it, but they didn’t do it. They continued on in their disbelief, they ignored Him, they continued going their own way. That is their sin, the sin of disbelief.
Before Jesus no one did the things He did. Before Jesus they didn’t know they were in the dark. But now they know it and now they hate Jesus and the Father because the light is shining in the darkness and the world wants to extinguish it. They may be following the law perfectly, yet they have sin. The sin of disbelief. The rejection of the Son of God, the Messiah.
25 “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
Have you ever hated someone? You had such an aversion to someone that you didn’t want to be anywhere near them - or even wanted them to get hurt or die? When you did, did you have a reason? Spell out some reasons....
But in this case they had no cause. The problem is that the darkness hates the light.
There is one other thing here - it says their law. How much of their law do you think was made up because of traditions and an attempt to maintain control. God’s law didn’t contain nearly as much as the law of the Jews had. Their law, got in the way.
26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,
The Helper - the Holy Spirit.
He proceeds from the Father because He is the Spirit of God. He is also a pledge from God to verify our salvation. In chapter 1 of Ephesians it says: “having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance”
He is also called the Spirit of Truth, Spirit of Christ, Spirit of Life, the Comforter, Counselor, advocate, Strengthener, Sanctifier, and the Spirit of Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Might and Knowledge. That’s a lot of names and each has a different role in the life of a believer the church and the world.
But the big thing here is that He will testify about Jesus… Romans 8:16
16 The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
Do you feel this testimony? Do you feel the Holy Spirit testifying with your Spirit that you are a child of God? The Holy Spirit’s presence reconciles us to God. His presence brings peace, comfort, wisdom, strength and knowledge. I am nothing without Him.
and to finish it off verse 27 says:
27 and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
You will testify.
To testify is to bear witness — to solemnly assert something, offering firsthand authentication of the fact; often concerning grave or important matters.
First hand authentication of the fact. What fact? The grave and important matter of the change Christ Jesus has made in your life.… That is our testimony. We have each walked a different road, but if you are a child of God you have a story worth telling. Some of you may have...
Of course we haven’t been with Him from the beginning but we have have our story and a book of letters that tells us everything we need to know to help others know Jesus. Plus we have the teacher, the Helper, the Holy Spirit.
32 “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.
33 “But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.
So if we confess our belief in Christ Jesus through our testimony to others we are good.
If we deny knowing Christ Jesus to others we are not good.
But what if we do neither? What if we are unwilling to speak up before men and confess Christ Jesus and Lord and Savior but we don’t directly deny Him before men? What then? Are we good or are we not good? Well James 4:17 says:
New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 4
Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.
The right thing to do is confess, tell your story, let the world know who you belong to.
Exit: If you believe in Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior you are one of the hated ones. The world hates Jesus and wants to extinguish His light. If you are in the light the world wants to silence you. If you are in the light you have the Helper with you. He can do all the talking that needs to be done. So when it comes time to testify, to confess Christ Jesus before men do it. Don’t be silent, don’t let the adversary have the day.
Telling your story is the right thing to do, telling your story is the best thing to do. Come on and testify.
Pray:
