Sermon Central
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Handling The World's Hatred
Contributed by Brian Williams on Feb 20, 2023 (message contributor)
Summary: Nowhere in this passage does Jesus call any of His followers to seek revenge or retreat from the world because of their hatred towards you, but He is calling them to be an active, living testimony of the love and life of God.
As a review from the last Sundays, the narrative from chapters John 13 - 14 is describing Jesus is in His last week on earth and in chapters 15 on, it is down to the last hours before the crucifixion. He has been preparing the disciples for His death, eventual departure from the world and that after He was gone, He would send the Holy Spirit (the third Person of the Trinity) who would continually keep them connected to Him and the Father. The Holy Spirit would always be with them, filling them, speaking the words of Jesus to their innermost beings, and revealing God’s mind to them.
Before the coming of the Holy Spirit, the disciples’ relationship with Jesus was outward - they heard His words and witnessed His miracles, but after the ascension, when the Spirit would come, He would speak heart-to-heart with them, help them understand spiritual truths, and transform their moral and spiritual character. Through the Spirit they would learn how to have a personal vibrant, ever-deepening relationship with the Lord. If they remained in the Vine, in God’s love, the Spirit would produce much fruit in them, that is, Christlike character, the life and character that was in such sharp contrast of what human beings could ever produce or achieve.
The Holy Spirit’s presence would enable or empower them to love God, to love each other and to be a witness for Jesus in a world that had become hostile to the Gospel. Let’s turn to:
17 This I command you, that you love one another. 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 you as 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 persecute you as well; if they followed My word, they will follow yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of My name, 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 The one 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 this has happened so that the word that is written in their Law will be fulfilled: ‘THEY HATED ME FOR NO REASON.’
26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, namely, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, He will testify about Me, 27 and you are testifying as well, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
16:1-4 “These things I have spoken to you so that you will not be led into sin. 2 They will ban you from the synagogue, yet an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering a service to God. 3 These things they will do because they have not known the Father nor Me. 4 But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them. However, I did not say these things to you at the beginning, because I was with you.
Even though Jesus was talking about the world’s hatred towards Himself and His disciples, this passage applies to those who have experienced different levels of hatred as followers of Christ. Because we live in a world that is hostile to light and truth it is vital to know:
? What to expect
? Who you are
? How to testify
Let’s look at the first point:
1) What to expect
Jesus said, “This [is what] I command you: that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another” (v. 17). Why did He say this? Why is it so important for us to follow Jesus closely, keep ourselves in His love, and to love each other with His love? Because in the next verse He says that the world will hate you, as much as it hates Me.
There is a way God designed you to live as His child, as part of His family. The fruit of your life will be a testimony of your relationship with and to God, which is walking in love and obedience to Him which is something that this self-seeking world system cannot fathom. Even if the culture agrees with certain Christian ethics and morals, it rejects God as the source of life and the final authority. This rejection is a form of hatred.
