Photo. Friend Tom Randal in the Philippines.

The Sermon Passage: John 15:18-16:4

The Big Idea: Jesus informs his followers of the world’s hatred for them, the forms this antimosity will take, why it comes and the hope they have in facing such hostility.

I. What form? (15:18, 20; 16:2).

II. Why does it come?

A. You’ve switched sides (vv. 19-25).
We now have been called to play on a different team. The other team will not like us very well now. It is similar to the hatred that Cain had for Abel.

B. Not ignorance, but sin (vv. 22-25).
This treatment is not sportsmanship animosity but sin. Education and more information is not the answer.

III. What hope do we have?

A. Jesus told us it would be this way (16:1, 3).
It should come as no surprise. They don’t want to hear our nonsensical words.

B. Spirit-empowered testimony (15:26-27)
All of our witness is apostolic witness as we re-tell what they have seen and heard. The Spirit changes hearts not us.

When ill treatment comes it is tempting for the church to withdrawal into a holy huddle. Christ says that we need to continue bearing witness.

Ridley and Lattimer were burned alive for their faith in England a few hundred years ago. The morning he was going to die, one of them told the warden’s believing wife, “My breakfast will be somewhat sharp but my dinner will be oh so sweet!!!”

The passage.
18 “If the world hates 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, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
22 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.
23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also.
24 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.
25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
26 “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.
27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.
2 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.
3 And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.
4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. The Work of the Holy Spirit “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.