The World Will Hate You

(John 15:18-16:4)

I. Introduction.
A. Orientation.
Last time, Jesus explained
Our relationship to Him
As that of branches to a vine.
He is the Vine
He is the One
Who is the source of our life,
The One who gives the Spirit
We are the branches
Those connected to Him by faith,
Those who have received the rich sap of His Spirit,
And continue to receive it from Him,
So that we can do the work He calls us to
The fruit that glorifies His Father
That proves to the world
That Jesus is the Messiah
And that we belong to Him,
That brings to us a greater sense of His love,
And that fills our hearts
With the same kind of joy Jesus had

2
When He glorified His Father
Through His obedience.

We also saw that being connected to Jesus

And having His Spirit dwelling in us
Also gives us the power to love each other
As Jesus loved us.
This is what Jesus pointed to earlier
As the way the world would be able
To recognize us as His disciples:
He says in John 13:34-35, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one
another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all
men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

B. Preview.
This morning, Jesus tells us
That as we show Him our love
And as we love each other
This will also bring
Another response from the world: hatred.

Jesus explained this hatred the world has towards Him

Earlier to Nicodemus in John 3:19-20, This is the judgment, that the Light has
come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their
deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come
to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
The world hated Jesus

3
Because of the light He was shining
Through His Words and deeds.
If we are connected to Him
If His Spirit is in us
That same light will shine from us
And so the world will hate us as well.

Jesus, because He loves and cares for us so deeply,

Wants us to know this will happen
So that when we do what He commands
And have to face the worlds ire,
We wont be stumbled by it.

II. Sermon.
A. First, Jesus wants us to know
That if we belong to Him,
Far from promoting our popularity in this world,
We will be hated.
He says in verse 18,
If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.

On the surface,
It appears as though Jesus is leaving the question open
As to whether the world will hate us or not:
By saying, If the world hates you.

4
In the original language,
Its not really a question of if, but when.
Hes not talking about possibility, but reality:
If we belong to Jesus,
The world will hate us.

By the world, of course,

Hes not talking about this planet,
Or the universe He created,
Hes talking about the people
Who are part of this world:
Who follow the god of this world: Satan;
Those who dont belong to Him,
Those He tells us He hasnt chosen
Or those He has, but hasnt yet called.
Jesus says in verse 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.
In terms of the Vine and the branches,
These are the branches that are not connected to the Vine
That dont bear any good fruit,
But only bad.

If we werent connected to the Vine,

If all we bore was bad fruit,

5
These are the branches that would love us
Jesus says the world loves its own.
But because Jesus chose us
And called us out of the world
Because He graciously gave His life for us,
To cleanse us of our sins,
That He might connect us to Himself,
Fill us with His Spirit and His love
Because we now speak the same truth,
And show the same kind of love
Now the world hates us.

Does that mean they will hate us all the time?

Should we expect them to throw rocks at us
When we walk down the street?
No.
As long as theyre not aware of any difference in us
They will treat us like anyone else.
Its only when they see the light shining from us
When we live according to Gods Word,
When we share the Gospel with them,
When we warn them about Gods judgment,
When we tell them theyre doing something wrong
That they will hate us

Because this light

As Jesus said earlier
Exposes their evil.

B. Should we be surprised by this? Not really.

Jesus says this is how they responded to Him.
Look again at what He says in verse 18, If the world hates you, you know that it
has hated Me before it hated you.
Think about how Jesus was treated
How many times His enemies attacked Him,
How much they argued with Him,
How many times they tried to kill Him.

Why did they treat Him like this?

What had He done that was so bad?
He told them the truth.
He preached the Gospel.
He graciously healed their sicknesses
And set them free from demons.
He loved them,
As a shepherd loves his sheep
And in return, they hated Him.

This is even more remarkable

When you consider that those who hated Him

Were His own people:

John writes in 1:11, He came to His own, and those who were His own did not
receive Him.
Jesus was hated by the world
That was in His own church.

Jesus says, if they treated Him that way,

They will do the same to us.
He says in verse 20 of our text, 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.

However they would treat Jesus

Is how they will treat us
If they love Him, they will love us;
But if they hate Him, they will hate us
They will hate us for the same reason they would hate Him
Because its His image
Thats being formed in our lives
By His Holy Spirit.

C. Why did the world hate Him?

Why did His own people
The OT church,
The natural children of Abraham
Treat Him like this?

Jesus tells us its because

They didnt know His Father
He says in verse 21, But all these things they will do to you for My names sake,
because they do not know the One who sent Me.
Its not that they didnt know who God was
They knew His name,
They knew what He had done for them
That He had loved them,
That He had adopted them as His children
Through the covenant He made with Abraham
They knew what He had promised them
That He would send them His Messiah.
They knew all these things,
But they didnt know Him
They didnt have a loving/saving relationship with Him.

The fact they rejected Jesus

Was the proof that they didnt know the Father
If they had loved the Father,
They would have loved His Son,
Because the Son is just like Him.
Remember what Jesus said to Philip
When Philip asked Him to show them the Father:

9
Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He
who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, Show us the Father?
(John 14:9).

The Jews in hating Jesus

Were actually guilty of hating their own God.
Jesus says in verses 22-24 of our text, 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.

Jesus isnt saying if He hadnt come

They wouldnt be guilty of any sin
They had still broken His commandments
But they wouldnt have been guilty
Of the sin of hating and rejecting Him,
And so of hating and rejecting His Father.

What they hated Him for shows us

Just how wicked sin really is:
They hated Him for loving them,
For telling them the truth
The truth about their condition,
The truth about what God does to sinners,
But also the truth about
What God was going to do
To save them from judgment.

10

In doing this,
They were also doing
What God said they would do many years before
Which further proved that Jesus was Gods Son.
Jesus says in verse 25, But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in
their Law, THEY HATED ME WITHOUT A CAUSE.

D. Finally, why was Jesus telling His disciples these things?

Why was He warning them
That the world would hate them?
He did this so that when it happened,
They wouldnt be stumbled.
Jesus says in 16:1-4, 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.

He warns us in advance
So that we wont be stumbled either
So that we wont be tempted to fall away:
Its not easy to be hated by anyone,
Especially by such a large group of people
Being prepared is half the battle.

11
Jesus doesnt promise us a condo on the beach,
Millions of dollars in the bank,
The respect and admiration of all our neighbors,
If we follow Him:

He says the road will be hard

The cost will be great
And that we must be willing
To pay it before we can even start.
Jesus told the crowds that followed Him in Luke 14:26-35,
If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and
children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My
disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be
My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not
first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it?
Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who
observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, This man began to build and was not
able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle,
will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten
thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand?
Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms
of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his
own possessions. Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless,
with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure
pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

He says we also cant expect

The world to applaud us, but hate us.

The disciples were going

To be thrown out of the synagogue
They were going to be cut off

12

From the nation of Israel

They would be outcasts,
On the run for their lives
From those who thought
They were pleasing God by so doing
These are the ones who are most dangerous.

Jesus says hardship and hatred

Is the cost we must be willing to pay:
Are you willing?

If youre a believer here this morning,

You are willing
Youve already enlisted on these terms.
You didnt sign up
Because of the hardship or hatred,
But because you love Jesus
You love who He is,
And what He offers
You signed up because
There was nothing else you could do
Nothing else would satisfy you.
All the difficulties you have to face are worth it
Because He loves you,

13

And because you love Him.

But Jesus says to the rest of you

Who arent following Him,
That if you want to go after Him,
This is the price you must be willing to pay.
You also need to see that its worth it:
You might have to suffer for a little while on earth,
But you will escape an eternity of suffering in hell,
And enjoy the joy and happiness of heaven forever
In a relationship with Him that will fill your heart
With more love than you have ever known.

If thats what you want,

Then turn from the world and your sins now,
Look to Him in faith,
Be willing to suffer whatever hardship and hatred you must,
Follow Him,
And He will give you all these things. Amen.
http://www.gcmodesto.org