Being Persecuted

As we live our Christian lives there are a lot of questions that are related to the Christian Life that don't really fall into life and death categories. Questions like: what's your favorite version of the bible? How can I be a better group member? Or the BIG ALL-IMPORTANT QUESTION: if a church has a meal at the end of the service, is it called a dinner, a potluck, or a fellowship?

Questions like these are not that important. But, other questions about our walk with Christ carry a lot of weight. Questions like: am I prepared to suffer well? Am I ready to be hated for the sake of Jesus?

Suffering may not be a common topic of conversation in our lives but suffering for the sake of Jesus, being persecuted because we follow Him, is something Jesus told us to expect. Today we will be using John chapters 15 and 16. Right after Jesus commanded us to love one another, He warned us to prepare to suffer along with other believers. Jesus wanted to help us understand that living connected to Him means we will be mistreated the same as He was. But we can endure the hard times because Jesus is with us, and He is definitely worth it. Prayer.

I faintly hear of individuals from time to time saying they feel they are being persecuted. When I hear that I almost smile an inner smile. The reason for that is I wonder if we really know what persecution is. I serve as pastor of Revival Sunday school ministry in a country on the other side of the world. This is a country that does not respect Christianity in any way. They are not followers of Christ as a whole and those that do follow Christ are treated as second-class citizens. Their churches are burned. They are made fun of on a daily basis. They are never offered help from their non-Christian world. The only employment they can get is that of street sweeper, sewer worker, and other strictly labor intensive jobs. That is persecution. We should be thankful that we don't suffer persecution like they do.

The passage of scripture that we will look at today is a difficult passage to read. It's difficult, but it's also beautiful and logical. It's difficult because reading that the world hates the followers of Jesus is upsetting, even scary, for those of us who follow Him. And yet it is beautiful because it reminds us that we have been loved by our Savior and called by that Savior out of a world of death into a world of life. Jesus declared He has chosen us out of this sin-filled, hostile, fallen world.

John 15:18-21 – “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.”

Jesus’ words are logical. People who have been brought into the kingdom of God still have to live in this world. So, Christians are going to seem weird, wrong, and out of place to the people of this world. Our hearts, minds, values, and priorities are foreign to those who are not followers of Jesus. They just don't understand why we do what we do. They don't understand why we see the importance of coming to church regularly and worshiping our God. But we are still here, sticking out and standing out because we choose not to live like the world.

What we believe and what the world believes don't always line up. Our belief and trust in the resurrected Jesus supports everything in our lives. We live with this longing for the return of Christ. At times, we seem to be so moved by what Jesus did to give us that hope that we fight against our sinful human nature in order to be as much like Him as we can. And when we are like Him, we are not like so many others in the world. That kind of makes us aliens. We are strangers. We are the hostiles. We are not of the world as Jesus said in verse 19.

Verse 20 says that we are servants of our master, Jesus. So far in the past few weeks, we have seen that Jesus wants us to live, love, and obey as we live connected to Him, but His ways are not the ways of the unbelieving world. Thus, the problem. His ways appear strange to the rest of the world. Christianity is supposed to be strange to the world around us. Following Jesus is supposed to look different. And so, conflict and sometimes even hatred is inevitable as a result.