The world will hate you

WELCOME:

Yard Sale Sign up sheet!

Children’s church meeting right after service today. If you are signed up for children’s church, please stay over so Hannah can explain the new structure to us. If you are not signed up for children’s church, we need your help! It will be once a month at the most and we need volunteers

Prayer meeting this Wednesday: NO MEAL

SCRIPTURE READING:

Psalm 145:1–7 “I will extol You, my God, O King, And I will bless Your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless You, And I will praise Your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised, And His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise Your works to another, And shall declare Your mighty acts. On the glorious splendor of Your majesty And on Your wonderful works, I will meditate. Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, And I will tell of Your greatness. They shall eagerly utter the memory of Your abundant goodness And will shout joyfully of Your righteousness.”

LET US STAND AND WORSHIP!

“The Goodness of God”

Words and Music by Hillsong’

PRAYER OF PRAISE FOR WHO GOD IS

Lord, thank you for your constancy. For never turning Your back on us, for never getting frustrated with us, for forgiving our sins, for allowing us to be part of Your plan. We ask that You would look down upon this gathering of people and fill our hearts with great joy today as we focus on You. Amen!

“What a beautiful Name”

Words and Music by Hillsong

“What a beautiful Name”

Words and Music by Hillsong

PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION TO OPEN OUR HEARTS

Lord, give us ears to hear Your voice and eyes to see Your glory. Would you this morning illuminate Your Word and make it known to us? Help us no to make application to others peoples’ lives, but to apply every Word to our own lives. Amen

SERMON

INTRODUCTION:

“The world will hate you”. That’s the next lesson Jesus will teach His disciples in light of his departure. And by way of extension, Jesus is saying to us today, the world will hate us too. 7 times in these verses Jesus uses the word “hate”.

Hate is not a very popular word in the church. Our favorite word “love”. The church is supposed to be characterized by love: Love for one another, love for those on the outside, love our neighbor as ourself, love that coves a multitude of sins, love for God…

So when we come to this passage and Jesus says despite all that love you have for each other and others….you’re going to be hated.

If we truly follow Jesus in this life, we will be hated by this world, rejected by this world, becuase a salve is not greater than his master, and if they hated Jesus they will hate us too. A true love for Jesus will absolutely mean hatred from the world. And the opposite is true: The one who does not really love Jesus, will be loved by the world.

This is one of the costs to follow Jesus. Are you willing to be hated?

Read John 15:18-16:4

~PRAYER~

1) The world hates christians, because it hated Jesus

John 15:18–21 NASB95

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. “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. “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. “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.

Explanation:

Jesus begins with this hopeful statement: “if the world hates you” which sounds conditional and may make us think: “Ok, there is only a possibility that they will hate me”

But in the very next verse He clarifies: “the world will hate you”.

That’s pretty direct, pretty straight forward and does not leave any room for another interpretation.

The world will hate those who follow Jesus. That applied to those men 2,000 years ago and it applies to us today.

Now let’s think about who Jesus is referring to as the world?

Jesus describes two kinds of people in these verses: 1) those who are of the world and 2) those who Jesus chose out of the world.

So He is not speaking of the entire human race, nor is he speaking about the earth as the world, but He is speaking of the world as a system that is opposed to God, that is opposed to Jesus, that is opposed to divine truth, and lives in rebellion toward God.

The world has its own set of values: what it says is important, material things, greed, pleasure, temporal things, it’s own aspirations and the people of this world live for those things

And all of us begin as living according to that system. We live for ourselves, we trust in everything except God, we make our own decisions, we run after pleasure and material things, we live in sin and rebellion….until God moves into our lives and we become children of God who are no longer of this world.

John 3:3 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again (born from above) he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

There are those who are of this world, and those who are born from above, and that is the primary difference in the human race. Not color, not male and female, not rich or poor: saved sand lost.

(v 19) “If you were of the world, the world would love you, but if you are not of the world, the world hates you”

When people do not conform to the pattern of this world, to the way this world operates, the world’s logic, the natural response from this world is to hate them, to hate what is different.

But to those who do what the world does, who lives just like everyone else, who operates by the same principles: the world will love them.

Two points here:

We should live in such a way, in such conformity to Christ, that the world can easily pick us out

The way that we behave, how we talk, what our goals are in life, how we respond to people who mistreat us or take advantage of us, the world should be able to see that without us saying anything and know that we are different.

Jesus said you are the light of the world Matt 5:14.

Simply by the way that we live, should immediately cause people to identify us with Jesus

This will naturally cause the world to hate you

They will not hate you simply because you are different, they will hate you because you identify with Jesus and they hated Jesus.

“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you”

Jesus never did anything wrong. He never sinned against anyone, yet they still hated Him.

The same is true for us. You don’t have to do anything against the people of this world for them to hate you, they are going to hate you simply because you live a righteous life which exposes their wicked deeds.

Application:

Why is it that so much of what we do in the church and even in our own lives is try to get the world to love us and accept us?

I mean some churches go to great lengths to try to be accepted by the world.

They dress casual and pastors dress like teenagers

We try to make the church as worldly as possible so they feel comfortable

We try not to use theological language because oh that might offend people

We change the music so that it’s not really worship music about God but more focused on self and has become more entertaining than worship all together.

We water down the gospel message so that it does not offend people

We take e two greatest religious holidays: EASTER AND CHRISTMAS and we make them about Easter eggs and presents and warm feelings rather than the incarnation and resurrection

We go to great lengths to mark the world love us and Jesus says plainly….IF YOU TRULY LOVE JESUS THE WORLD WILL HATE YOU!

And by way of implication: choose whom you will love more

It’s BAD THEOLOGY to say that we can love God and also be loved by the world.

It’s bad practice to design our Christian gatherings around the false idea that can make the world love us!

It contradicts everything Jesus says here.

(v 20) “Remember what I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master”.

If the love Jesus showed His Father was the highest kind of love EVER, then why do we think we can do better than Jesus BY LOVING HIM AND GETTING THE WORLD TO LOVE US?

Now I’m not saying that we should not love the people of this world

Jesus told us to love our neighbor as our self.

Jesus told us the parable of the GOOD SAMARITAN TO SHOW US WHAT THIS LOVE LOOKED LIKE

Jesus is not saying hate the world because they hate you, BUT THAT REGARDLESS OF OUR LOVE FOR THEM, THERYB WILL HATE US

2) The world hates without a cause

John 15:22–25 NASB95

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. “He who hates Me hates My Father also. “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. “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’

Explanation:

“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin”

Jesus is not saying that the Jews were sinless before He came and spoke to them.

Scripture makes it clear that people have been sinning from the beginning, and physical death is proof of that. (Romans 5:12)

What He is referring to is the sin of rejecting Jesus which also includes the rejection of the Father. And since Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world: to reject Jesus is to reject any hope of forgiveness of sin

(v 25) “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’

In other words this was the plan all along. This OT quote was written about a thousand years before Christ came and here is this context Jesus applies it to Himself.

God did not send Jesus into the world in hopes that the world would somehow accept Him and love Him and follow Him.

It was not a hopeful mission that went wrong.

God knew all along exactly how the world would respond to the Light and that they would reject the Light because, “men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” (John 3:19)

Application:

And God is not shocked today by the world’s hatred of the church nor is He shocked today by their rejection of Jesus.

If Jesus walked among them then, taught better than any preacher or teacher today, and He was hated for no reason at all, then we should not be surprised that people do not hear or need our witness in the world today?

The point I want to make is this: don’t be discouraged when you invite someone to church and they never show up. Or when you see someone in the church get up one day and walk away, or someone you are discipling fall away and go back into the world and never speak to you again…

It’s not you or your effort or your kindness or love that they are rejecting.

It’s not something that we have done wrong. It’s not that we are weird, or our building smells a little when it rains, or anything of the sort.

It’s the nature of this world. They hated Jesus for no reason, and that same spirit lives in the people of this world today.

We don’t have to do anything to be disliked.

Don’t be discouraged by this

Thankfully Jesus did not leave us to fight this impossible mission!

There is good news:

3) The Holy Spirit’s help convincing people to turn to Jesus

John 15:26–27 NASB95

“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, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

Explanation:

“When the Helper comes…He will testify about Me”

That is the Holy Spirit will be at work in the world testifying about Jesus.

Just as John the Baptist testified about Jesus before He came, the Holy Spirit will testify about Jesus after He left.

How will He do this?

Look down in verse 8

John 16:8 NASB95

“And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;

1) The Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin

That word “convict” means to “convince” people they are guilty before a holy God.

Convicted in Court Illustration

Imagine standing in a court room because of something you have been accused of.

Let’s say you get into a wreck and hurt someone. You do not think you have done anything wrong but the court does.

So the prosecuting attorney comes out and lays out the case before the jury, and the case is not only convincing to the Jury, it also convinces you.

And you realize along with your pronouncement of guilty before the court after seeing the evidence that you indeed are guilty.

That is how the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin. He is the prosecuting attorney who moves into people’s lives and convicts them that they have indeed sinned before God and are guilty

It is natural for the people to make excuses for our sin. We do not naturally see ourselves as sinners.

There are always these extenuating circumstances, and we are not really wicked; we were backed into a corner of impossible temptation or caught in a weak moment or what we did we really didn’t think it was sin.

It takes the prosecuting work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts for us to see ourselves for what we really are-sinners, people who have broken God’s law and are guilty before Him.

2) The Holy Spirit will convict people concerning righteousness

Now Jesus expands on this meaning down in verse 10 and says, “because of righteousness because I go to the Father”.

The righteousness Jesus is talking about is the righteousness Jesus established in work of Jesus on the cross. That is why he says, “because I go to the Father”

What the Spirit does is convinces people that the kind of righteousness they need cannot be earned by doing good works cannot save them.

He shows people that going to church, praying, reading the Bible, singing hymns none of this can give them the righteousness that they need.

They become convinced the only way to ever be right with God is if God could give them His righteousness and he has done that through the cross.

3) He will convict the world concerning judgement

Jesus expands on this as well in verse 11: “and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.”

In other words, the evil of this world has been judged. The example of this is Satan himself who is the ruler of this world has been judged by Christ defeating death and sin on the cross

And if the ruler of this world has been judged, the the people who live according to the world’s ways will also be judged.

This is what the Holy Spirit convinces people of.

It is knowing that there is a real final judgement coming and all those who live according to the ways of this world will be judged along with their ruler.

Application:

All of that is to say this is good news for us. We are not left alone to try to convinces the world, in fact we cannot convince them without the help of the Holy Spirit

So when we go out and witness, we must remember what Jesus told us we would have: the help of the Holy Spirit.

It is His work that will convict them

He is the prosecutor

He is the One who points them to Jesus

He is the One who convinces them of what real righteousness is

He is the One who will convict them of a coming judgement

4) We are told ahead of time, so we do not stumble when the hatred comes

John 16:1–4 NASB95

“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling. “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. “These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. “But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. These things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

Explanation:

“These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling”

Jesus is telling them (and us) that as followers of Him we are going to be hated, and so when we are hated we do not “stumble”

The word stumble here is often used to refer to give up on the Christian faith. For that is the natural response when those who seek to live for Christ are met by the world’s hatred and they fall away altogether.

Now why would anyone stumble? Because the world will try to convince you with everything it has that you are wrong. That you are going too far. That you are unloving. That you are misrepresenting God. That you are spewing hate.

Many of you have been reading Mathew this week and the parables of Matthew. And in the parables of the soils. And that second kind of soil is this kind of person

Matthew 13:20–21 ““The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.”

We are told so we do not stumble and fall away.

(v 2-3) “they will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me.”

Do you see who Jesus is talking about? These are religious people. These are the people who often run churches and Christian organizations and denominations. These are people who think they are doing God a favor but they really do not even know Him.

Do not be surprised if persecution in your life comes from the inside, from those who claim to love God, from those who think by harassing you that they are doing some favor for God

Don’t be surprised if the source of persecution in your life comes from friends or family who have been in the church for 20 or 30 years and they turn against you because you are reflecting the true nature of Christ and all they have is a form of religion with no power

I would go as far to say that some of the worst enemies you may ever face in this nation, will be those who hold leadership positions in churches and Christian organizations who will bring you before board meeting to question why you do what you do…even if it is being faithful to God

That is the way it was for Jesus…

(v 4) “But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them”

Jesus says the reason he has told them of all these things is so that when the time comes, they will remember, and be prepared.

And that is what Jesus is saying to us this morning: When the hatred of the world steps into our lives, (and I pray to God that it does) that we will remember that Jesus said that is the way it will be

CONCLUSION:

This sermon naturally presents a conclusion. Those who love Jesus will be hated by the world, but those who hate Jesus will be loved by the world.

Those are the only two options

Which is it for you?

The way to move from the world to Kingdom is by turning from this world and turning to Jesus.

~PRAYER~