Please open your Bibles to John 15:18-16:4 which we will read in a few minutes.
In the Bible we often read of “the world”.
The world consists of those who stand against Christ and His kingdom.
In the time of Christ the world often referred to Jews who rejected the Jesus the Messiah.
In a broader sense the world is all of the kingdom of the evil one which is raised in opposition to the Kingdom of God; those who are the enemies of Christ.
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read: John 15:18-16:4
John 15:18-16:4
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. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’
If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed My teaching, they will obey yours also.
21 They will treat you this way because of My name, for they do not know the One who sent Me.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin.
Now, however, have no excuse for their sin.
23 He who hates Me hates My Father as well.
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 miracles, and yet they have hated both Me and My Father.
25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated Me without reason.’
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 But you also must testify, for you have been with Me from the beginning.
1 All this I have told you so that you will not go astray.
2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.
3 They will do such things because they have not known the Father or Me.
4 I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.
(Brief prayer)
John 15:18 NIV
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first.”
OK. That’s pretty powerful. Hate is a powerful emotion. Hate is not “irritated with someone” or “ignoring someone” or “disliking someone” or “resenting someone”.
Hate has an actively hostile quality to it.
A. W. Tozer:
To take Jesus Christ into your life without reservation is to accept His friends as your friends and to know that His enemies will be your enemies! It means that we accept His rejection as our rejection. We knowingly accept His cross as our cross.
If you then find yourself in an area where Christ has no friends, you will be friendless - except for the one Friend who will stick closer than a brother. (Tozer goes on to say) I made up my mind a long time ago. Those who declare themselves enemies of Jesus Christ must look upon me as their enemy, and I ask no quarter from them! And if they are friends of Christ, they are my friends - and I do not care what color they are or what denomination they belong to.
Are these parallel statements?
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first.” – Jesus
And …
“To take Jesus Christ into your life without reservation is to accept His friends as your friends and to know that His enemies will be your enemies!” – A. W. Tozer
To take Jesus into your life without reservation does not mean that you attend church on Sunday, read the Bible and pray, help others, give your tithes and offerings, etc. While all of those activities will be found in the lives of those who follow Jesus without reservation they can also be found in lives of those who have no relationship with Jesus at all but are just going through the motions.
To take Jesus into your life without reservation is monumental.
To take Jesus into your life without reservation is to take your hopes and your dreams and your aspirations and your plans for your life and replace them with the hopes, dreams, aspirations and plans which the Lord has for your life.
When we see the quote from Tozer that says, “His enemies will be your enemies” it is not that we will look at them and say that we have chosen them to be our enemy but because they have chosen to be enemies of Jesus and because we are so closely identified with Jesus they will therefore naturally choose to be our enemies as well.
It is not that those who take Christ into their lives without reservation would ever hunt for those who hate Jesus and declare them to be our enemies but that the enemies of Jesus will declare themselves to be our enemies because Jesus is living His life in and through us.
If the world hates us because we have taken Christ into our lives without reservation does it mean that we hate them in return?
According to a man who calls himself a pastor in Tempe, Arizona we should hate gays and all those associated with them. He declares that we should not only pray that they die and go straight to hell but that they should be rounded up and executed.
He says that Jesus doesn’t even want to save them; that there is no redemption for them because they are reprobate.
He says that we who believe that the blood of Jesus Christ is able to save even the reprobate are wrong. That Jesus does not want to save them and that we who preach that they can be saved are reprobate preachers; afraid or ashamed to preach the full word of the Lord.
I only give this to you as an example of what this is NOT saying.
OK. So, let’s put the homosexual, transgender and all that in the past.
This has a much larger scope that just that issue.
John 3:20 NIV
“Everyone who does evil hates the Light (Jesus), and will not come into the Light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.”
Those who hate Jesus hate us because we belong to Jesus.
They hate us we do not hate them.
They believe we are the enemy while we long for them to come to know Jesus as their Savior and to be delivered from a life of slavery to sin.
So, how does that play out in our lives? How does it look when we have those who consider us to be their enemy and yet we do not consider them to be our enemy?
Let’s look at the life of the Pharisee Saul to we know as the Apostle Paul.
Saul hated the followers of Jesus. Here is a snapshot of the Pharisee Saul, the hater of Jesus and the enemy of Christ.
Acts 9:1-2 NIV
“Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.”
But what happened when Jesus got a hold of Saul’s heart?
Saul’s former comrades changed from Saul’s allies into Saul’s enemies.
They hated Saul because he became a Christ follower.
Paul was opposed by the Jews and by many gentiles.
The opposition was so strong that Paul was
2 Corinthians 11:24-26 NIV
“Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea,
“I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers.”
Did Paul declare that all of these were his enemies?
What did he do?
One thing he did is this; when it became apparent that he was to be the apostle to the gentiles he stopped using his Hebrew name, Saul, and started using the Greek equivalent, Paul so that his name itself would not be a barrier to the Gospel.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 NIV
“Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews.
“To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law.
“To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law.
“To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.”
Now does it sound like Paul hated those who were hating him?
Who said this while hanging on a cross; “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”?
Does that sound like Jesus was hating those who were hating Him?
Jesus also said,
Matthew 5:43-45a NIV
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”
That seems radical to us but it only seems radical because the ways of the world are upside down to the things of the Lord.
John 15:18 NIV
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first.”
Let me ask you. Does that bother you? Is that OK with you?
What if the world did know that you claim to be a Christian …
What if the world could see into your home life?
Would it hate you or think of you as one of their own?
What if the world could see into your private life; what you watch on TV, what you read, what you look at on the internet?
Would it hate you or think of you as one of their own?
What if the world could see your thoughts?
Would it hate you or think of you as one of their own?
At this point someone might say, “Only you know.” But that’s not true, is it?
The evil one doesn’t know your inner thoughts but he can see into your home life and what you watch on TV and what you read and what you look at on your computer.
Yes, the evil one knows if he needs to think of you as an enemy or not.
The Lord also knows. If your life as a Christian is a charade then you are actually an enemy of Jesus; causing harm to the kingdom of God.
Jesus doesn’t play charades.
Jesus deals in reality.
You are either in His kingdom or against His kingdom.
You are either in Christ or you are not.
Christ is either in you or He is not.
Which side are you on?
When Jesus separates the sheep from the goats, the saved from the unsaved, His children from His enemies there will only be two responses:
“Come, you who are blessed by My Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
Or …
“Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”
One final thought about the world and this thought is the greatest thought of all time!
Even though the world hated and continues to hate Jesus, God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, why? Out of hate, no out of love so that whoever believes (explain) in Him will not perish but will have eternal life.
You see, God did not send His Son to condemn the world, the world was already condemned. In spite of that God sent His Son anyway in order to save the world through Him.
Here is the best promise of all time! Whoever believes in Jesus is not condemned but saved! And, whoever chooses to reject Jesus and does not place their faith and trust in Jesus is condemned already. Why? Because he has not placed his faith and trust in Jesus.
What an incredible offer!
There is no middle ground. (Invitation if the Spirit leads)
