Of Vines and Branches (Part Four)
Text: John 15:18-27
Imagine for a moment that you had to spend the day in Norman… You had to shop at Walmart, you had to go to a restaurant, and you had to go to the OU campus and speak at a presentation… not such a bad thing right? But imagine that you had to do all of that, and all you had to wear that day was a shirt that said, “I Love the Crimson Tide”
Changes things doesn’t it?
Now imagine that you had to spend the day in Tehran, the capital city of Iran… you had to walk the streets and be out in public all day long, and all you had to wear was a shirt that said, “I Love Jesus!”
In the first instance, you might get some stares… you might have a few choice words hurled your direction… you might even have some people who are extremely impolite. In the second instance, you’re probably going to have to run and hide in order to make it out of the city alive.
We’ve been looking at John chapter 15, and so far we’ve talked about being connected to the vine… we’ve talked about bearing fruit… and we’ve talked about how it’s all tied together by love… Our Love for God – God’s Love for us – and loving one another… and that love is what makes the difference. So today we’re going to finish up this chapter, and we’re going to see Jesus contrast that love with the hate of the world. Let’s go to our text (READ John 15:18-27).
So let me ask you all, have any of you ever been to Napa Valley California? I never have… but I have a slide that shows you some pictures (SHOW)… you see how green and cultivated it is? That particular region has just the right kind of climate and ecosystem that allows grapes to flourish and thrive… but if you go just a few hours drive to the east, you run into another valley… Death Valley (SHOW SLIDE). It’s a completely different climate and ecosystem. Nothing will live and thrive there
If you go west of Napa Valley, you run directly into the Pacific Ocean… can’t grow grapes in the Pacific Ocean… North of Napa is Portland Oregon… They get between 36 and 43 inches of rain every year… just to compare – we get between 19 and 24 inches of rain on average. South of Napa are the sprawling cities of San Francisco, LA, and San Diego. Vast areas of asphalt, concrete, and steel.
What I’m getting at here is that Napa Valley is completely different than everything around it. It stands out in stark contrast…
And that is how we should be as Christians. We should be distinct from the world. (Taken and adapted from an illustration on Sermon Central)
Look at verses 18 & 19 again (READ).
So, what should we expect from the world? Hatred! The Greek word there is “miseo”… That’s way more than the reaction you’d get from wearing an Alabama shirt in Norman… it’s more like wearing an “I Love Jesus” shirt in Tehran Iran. It means “to hate”, “to despise”, “to detest”… “to pursue with murderous hatred”.
And so Jesus is saying here, “If the world hates you… if the world despises you… if the world wants to murder you, know that it has done the same to Me.” That’s verse 18… But then He says, “But if you were of the world – it would love you… “phileo” you… that’s brotherly love… It means to love, to be fond of, to cherish as a brother. That’s how the world would treat you if you were of the world. But Jesus goes on… He says, “BUT…”. In other words… the world isn’t going to love you that way.
It isn’t going to love you in that way BECAUSE He has chosen us out of the world… and BECAUSE He has chosen us out of the world… the world will hate you. It will “miseo” you.
This is what Jesus faced. A hatred so intense it took Him to the cross. It’s what these disciples faced. Every one of them except John would be martyred for their faith. It’s what Christians faced until 313 A.D when Constantine issued the Edict of Milan… 300 years of solid miseo – hatred, persecution, violence, imprisonment, death.
And it’s still happening today. In places like Iran, Iraq, China, The Sudan and now all over Europe.
Have you ever noticed how it seems like Christians get so excited when some celebrity comes out and claims to be a Christian? Have you ever seen that? It’s weird… Like some celebrity endorsement adds credence to Christianity. To be honest, I cringe every time that happens… because what you typically see is some celebrity come out and say, “I’m a Christian”, but their language doesn’t change, their lifestyle doesn’t change… They still have a foul mouth and an immoral lifestyle… And those who do actually get converted… they aren’t in Hollywood for long… they don’t get movies or TV shows, they get black-listed and silenced. So, big difference right? People can profess it all day long, but when you’re truly born again, and changed by the power of God, given a new nature, new desires, new devotions… the world hates that.
Let me get back to the text here.
Jesus says, in essence, “If you’re a Christian, the world is going to hate you. And they’re going to hate you because they don’t know God.” That’s verse 21. And because they don’t know and love God, they don’t know and love Jesus… and if they don’t know and love Jesus, they aren’t going to love you as you faithfully follow Him and live for Him. They don’t know and love Jesus, so they don’t love His Bride the Church.
And that brings us to verse 22 (READ).
Now there’s a lot of people who try to take this verse and make it mean something it doesn’t. They say, “Oh! IF we don’t tell people about Jesus, then they aren’t guilty of sin.” That’s not what Jesus is saying… and you know it… verse 24 makes it even more clear (READ).
This sin is the sin of hating and rejecting Jesus. It’s the sin of unbelief. Let me just read to you something Charles Spurgeon once said about this…
“You cannot sin so cheap as other people, you – who have had the Gospel. When the unenlightened and ignorant sin, their conscience does not prick them; and there is not that guilt in the sin of the ignorant, that there is in the sin of the enlightened. Did you steal before? That was bad enough; but hear the Gospel and continue a thief, and you are a thief indeed. Did you lie before you heard the Gospel? The liar shall have his portion of the Lake of Fire; but he after hearing the Gospel, and it seems as if the “Fire of Tophet” should be fanned up to a seven-fold fury. …He who sins against light and knowledge, sins presumptuously; and under the Law there was no atonement for this, for presumptuous sins were out of the pole of legal atonement, although blessed be God, Christ hath atoned for even these, and he that believeth shall be saved, despite even his guilt.”
Let me put this in modern-day, Oklahoma laymen’s terms…
If you ignorantly drink poison, you’re going to die…
But if you know good and well that it’s poison, and you convince yourself that it’s not and drink it, despite your self-deception, you’re still going to die from drinking poison.
The Bible says the same thing in another way in Galatians 6:7, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.
What Jesus was saying in verses 22 and 24 is that people were without excuse. The Words that He spoke, the miracles that He did, the prophecies He fulfilled – all pointed to the fact that He is God come in the flesh… that He is the long awaited, promised Messiah and Savior. To reject Him is to reject your only hope – it’s to trample the blood of Christ under your feet.
And the same is true when someone today hears the Gospel message, when someone today hears the Good News of God’s offer of salvation, through faith in Jesus.
The writer of the Book of Hebrews picks up on this in Hebrews chapter 6…
Hebrews 6:7-8 says, “For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it, and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed, and its end is to be burned.”
So the context of what Jesus is saying here in our text, is found in what He’s already said.
It’s found in what we’ve already looked at…
The Vine and branches. True faith and false faith. Believing in the One True Messiah and Savior, or rejecting Him, denying Him, failing to acknowledge Him as Savior and Lord.
Now let me show you something else here…
Jesus is not only telling us what we should expect from the world, by way of saying what He says here, He’s also telling us what He expects from us as believers.
Let’s jump back up to verse 19 (READ).
So, as Christians, we should be different and distinct from the world. Not in some weird, awkward, creepy way. And not as isolationists. One of the things that we see both Jesus and the Apostle Paul do is take things from the world… the worlds perspective, current events, world-views and what the world valued, and use those things as teaching points… to show how the world’s philosophies and value system were folly and foolish. But they weren’t isolated from them or ignorant of them.
Just a few weeks back, we looked at how Jesus used the event of the Tower of Siloam falling on some people and teaching the need for repentance from that. It was a current event that Jesus used to teach a Biblical truth – namely the need to repent and trust in Jesus.
And so, as Christians, we are in the world, but not of the world. We are not isolationists, but instead distinct as we go out into the world.
And I’m just going to come out and say it… and if you can’t say amen, then say “oh my”. A lot of Christians fall into that isolationist camp because of the other truth this passage teaches us… If you’re following Jesus, the world is going to hate you. If you’re following Jesus, the world is going to persecute you. But here’s the truth – you CANNOT love as Jesus loved isolating yourself from the persecution of the world.
The second thing that Jesus expects from us is that we be His witnesses… look again at verses 26 and 27 (READ).
Again, it’s kind of hard to be a witness if we’re not engaging the world around us. Again, the command that Jesus gives His Church is to “GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES!”
Now real quickly, let me give you one more Greek word… That word in our text translated as “witness” is the Greek word “martyreo”. It’s where we get our word “martyr”. Jesus literally tells His disciples “You are to go forth and be martyrs for Me, and by doing so, you’ll bear witness.”
So let me summarize this for you.
Jesus says, “Love as I have loved.” That means sacrificially, willing to give everything if need be.
“The world will hate you because it does not know God, and hates God… and as you follow Me, the world will hate you, because it hated Me… But you love as I have loved… meaning you go! You speak the truth in love. You bear witness to Me because the Holy Spirit within you bears witness to Me, and because you love as I have loved, sacrificially, even if it means death – martyrdom.”
You want to know why so many people turned away from Jesus in John’s Gospel? Because they loved this present world. They loved this present world and they feared death. They believed in Jesus to a point, but did not believe that He was the Resurrection and the Life. They did not believe that to live is Christ, but to die is gain. They thought following Jesus would give them their “best life now”, but did not regard the life to come.
What about you?
CLOSING
