Why the world hates you

John 15:18-16:4

Introduction

Today's sermon is all about why the world hates you. Perhaps that sounds like a slightly negative, slightly paranoid sort of thing to say. Actually, everyone hates me because I'm paranoid. I think you know why the world hates me but you've all conspired together not to tell me!

All joking aside, this passage does show why the world hates Christians but it is not meant to leave us paranoid. On the contrary, it is meant to prepare us for effective living in this world where we are not side tracked.

Either / Or (15:18-19)

The first thing we see from this passage is that there are only two ways to live: either you belong to this world or you belong to Jesus. Have a look at verses 18-19:

^{John 15:18}  'If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.  ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.

So there is a very clear distinction here: either you belong to the world or you belong to Jesus. This distinction matters because the world has set itself in radical opposition to Jesus. The world is not indifferent to Jesus it hates him. There is a fundamental hostility [1] .

You see, becoming a Christian is not merely about finding a better way to live, an answer to some of life's trickier questions. At its heart, becoming a Christian means a radical translation from the world to Jesus. The Christian once belonged to the world, lock, stock and barrel, but now through a change of ownership and allegiance, the Christian belongs to Jesus.

This makes more sense when we think about what God says about the world.

God created the world with mankind at its pinnacle. But mankind chose to reject God's rule. He chose to ignore God's right to rule and thereby set himself up against God. That's what sin is: it is choosing to ignore God and place yourself in his position instead.

That state of mutiny is where human society finds itself today. When the book of John talks about the world, it means human society and individual people who refuse to be ruled by Jesus. As a result, John describes it as a place of darkness (1:5; 3:19) in contrast to Jesus who is the light of the world (Jn 1:5; 8:12; 12:35, 46).

In fact, Satan is described as the prince of this world (12:31; 14:30; 16:11). This is the place where he is recognised, the place where he is able to exert influence. He is not the king but he is a prince. This world, and its people, are his home turf, set up in rebellion to Jesus.

But sometimes we are tempted to think that we can live with a foot in each camp. We try to safely position ourselves in some politically correct middle-ground. But there is a trap concealed: the more we live in the world's camp, the more it applauds and approves of us and the easier life becomes. But it is a trap.

If this is making sense to you, you'll see that this passage calls us to make a conscious decision about whether we belong to Jesus or whether we belong to this world. For each of us, this is a question of Lordship. Either Jesus is our Master or 'the world' is our Master. We make a conscious decision for which there will be consequences now and forever. The rest of the passage simply unpacks those consequences.

Why the world hates you: no servant is greater than his Master (15:20-25)

And so, in verses 20-25, Jesus explains this by saying, 'No servant is greater than his Master--' That is to say, the servant represents the master: people treat the servant exactly the same way as they treat his master.

You might have recently heard Alexander Downer threaten to expel from Australia the North Korean Ambassador Chon Jae Hong [2] . It's not as though this man was the one developing nuclear bombs or pulling the trigger, but he is the one who is given harsh treatment. Why?  Australia is treating the ambassador as the representative of the whole country of North Korea and so he is treated no better than Australia believes North Korea deserves. The servant represents the master and is treated no better than the one he represents.

And that's the key idea of the rest of this passage. Here's how it works. Jesus says:

So that's the overall message of this passage, but just a few more words about why the world hates Jesus. It is not his miracles but his works. Have a look at verse 24:

^{John 15:24} If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these.., and yet they have hated both me and my Father.

You might have noticed that I did not read out the word 'miracles' there. That's because it's not there in the original text. For some strange reason the NIV has put the word in there and I think it's shame that the editors did because it makes it's sound like the world hates Jesus for his miracles—his healings, his feeding of the 5000 his cleansing of lepers and so on.

Every other translation of the Bible does not add the word 'miracles' but focuses instead on Jesus' work. That is, not only his miracles but his teaching, his claim to be the Son of God, his condemnation of the Pharisees, his symbolic overthrowing of the temple: all that Jesus did that condemned the world's rejection of its own Messiah. Jesus came from God the Father, to do his will and bring salvation—but his even own people refused to listen, to recognise him.

^{John 1:10} He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.  ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

I have no problem with Jesus doing miracles, either then or today. Let me be clear in case anyone should get the wrong idea—Jesus did and continues to do what some call miracles, things that are contrary to normal human expectation. But that is not what Jesus is talking about here.

The world hates Jesus because of his works which testify to his Father and which condemn their self-justification. Listen as Jesus again describes his work, right after those famous words from John 3:16—he continues in verse 17:

¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God"s one and only Son.  ¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.  ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.'

Jesus works judged the world's wickedness [3] . Their sin has been exposed yet instead of turning to God, they hardened their hearts. That is why the hate Jesus. And if they hate Jesus, they will hate his servants. For no servant deserves better treatment than his master.

So testify (15:26-27)

So that's why things are as they for Christians in this world. The world hates you because of Jesus. I know that we might wonder about this at times because things are pretty easy for us. However, on a world-wide level, things are much more the way that Jesus described. Ask any Christian in Darfur in Sudan or Poso, Indonesia.

I recently read a few articles on The Voice of the Martyrs website. Here is part of the latest posting [4] .

On October 16, 2006, Pastor Irianto Kongkoli was shot and killed by two masked gunmen. He was 42 years old.

The attack happened at 8:15 a.m. local time. That morning, Pastor Kongkoli was shopping for tiles with his wife, Mrs. Rita Arianti Kopa, and five-year-old daughter, Galatea. The trio took the family van to a local hardware shop. Pastor Kongkoli was browsing the store"s yard when two masked men shot him in the head at a range of two meters--. Following the attack, the masked men fled...

Local police are following a lead on the two men suspected in Pastor Kongkoli"s murder. The suspects are also wanted for the murder of Pastor Susianti Tinulele, a pastor shot in the back of her head during a Sunday service, and the murder of an unidentified employee at a gold shop.

Yet, in spite of all this, central to all that Jesus has said is this word 'testify'. He says in verse 26:

^{John 15:26}  'When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.  ²⁷ And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

After Jesus has gone, there will be a continuing testimony to him. The Holy Spirit has a role and we have a role declaring the truth about Jesus to a world in opposition to God. Notice that we are not passive, we are active. We will testify—it is inevitable and it carries the force of a command [5] .

In the context of verses 20-25, it's clear that this means we bear witness that Jesus has been sent by God as the Messiah and so people need to turn to him for the forgiveness of their sins and salvation.

Our testimony will involve speaking words and acts of love. You cannot testify without words and yet without love, your words will have little credibility. This is the way of Jesus that we are to follow. Remember that already in this conversation Jesus has told his disciples:

^{John 13:34}  'A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  ³⁵ By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.'

So others will know that we are the genuine article by our love. And yet to make sense of that love, they will need to hear words that explain who Jesus is.

In his book, Becoming Contagious Christians, Bill Hybels explains how to have maximum impact in our testimony to Jesus. He illustrates this with a formula:

MI= HP + CP + CC

Maximum Impact = High Potency + Close Proximity + Clear Communication.

High Potency is all about being 'on fire' for God. It means living for him and loving him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. When you are sold out for Jesus, you've got something very attractive that people want: you have purpose and meaning for life and a relationship with the living God. To be contagious, you've got to have the real thing yourself.

Close Proximity is simply living your life transparently for God in close proximity to other people—passing it on.

Now the part that we all freeze at is clear communication. The easiest communication is your testimony: tell someone what Jesus has done for you. Tell then how you became a Christian and why—no one can argue with that. You won't end up discussing tricky apologetic conundrums. If you really want to develop your confidence, you can do further training with courses such as Evangelism Explosion, Christianity Explained, Two ways to Live etc. All the High Potency and Close Proximity in the world is not going to make an impact without Clear Communication.

But notice one thing: that we are to testify. Our role is not to convict or to convince. That is the Holy Spirit's role (John 16:8ff).

Now, because we testify and the Spirit convinces, I would add PH to that equation, where PH means to Pray Hard!

Don't get side-tracked (16:1)

So we are to testify. Yet, Jesus follows his command to testify with a warning to his disciples. Have a look at 16:1;

^{John 16:1}  'All this I have told you so that you will not go astray.

The reason that Jesus tells his disciples all this is that there is a danger, a threat. The danger is that they will stumble and fall away when the world expresses it hatred toward them; that when they testify they might be caught off-guard by the reaction that they get. Jesus' message is don't be surprised and don't be side tracked. Testify.

This basic principle of deadly opposition sounds extreme, radical, even fundamentalist. Yet as we have seen, it does not lead us to hate the world, to kill other people or force them to believe what we do. Quite the opposite, we are to love the people of the world and testify to the truth.

We're nearly at the end of our Bible talk this morning, but I want to take some time to ask you two questions and give you a few moments to reflect on your answers.

1. Who sees your testimony?

2. What would they make of your testimony? Is it clear? How could it be clearer?