The World, The Test & The Testimony Series

And Jesus says that for He Himself, as the Messiah,,that all this had been predicted by the very words of the Scriptures which the Jews themselves claimed was the Word of God. Verse 25: “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their law, They hated Me without a cause,” a quote from Psalms 35:19 written 1000 years earlier.

The point: Count on the world to hate you for no good reason—and for a lot of bad reasons—the world loves its sin. That’s what it comes down to. Not an intellectual issue at all. Not a “can’t believe,: but a “won’t believe.” Because they love their sin. That’s the bottom line when it comes to hatred from the world. They hate Jesus and they hate you for no good reason. Don’t spend a lot of time trying to figure it out. The reason is simply that they love their sin, they love darkness, and therefore they hate the light and everyone, even you, who exposes them to the light.

But Jesus does have encouragement, and direction for us. Once again, He refers the disciples to that coming Holy Spirit, and his continuing work in our role in the world. In other words, as we’re in the world, we won’t be alone. The Holy Spirit will be with us in helping us fulfill our task in the world—Witnessing, witnessing despite the world’s hatred. Keeping us witnessing—our responsibility in relationship to the world, regardless of how the world responds.

And our final point this morning is this: Keep on witnessing, just as the Spirit keeps on witness despite the world’s hatred.

Verse 26: When the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me. That’s just going to happen, that’s going to happen anyway, regardless of what we do, but also because of what we do. If we abide in Christ, we cooperate with the Spirit, and we will testify or witness to the world about the truth of Jesus Christ. The Spirit of truth, as we abide in Christ, will see to it that we are effective in this matter.

And that’s what verse 27 indicates: And you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning. Of course, this verse has particular application to these 11 disciples, because they had been with Jesus from the beginning of his ministry. And the more knowledge they had, the more responsible before God and more capable before the World they were. And the world’s hatred, and its persecution and its rejection were to be no excuses. Believers, you and I are to keep on testifying, keep on witnessing in the power of the Spirit despite the world’s hatred.

Now remember, in John 15, Jesus has given us three words which sum up our responsibility as believers to the three major relationships we are going to have in this world. With regard to Jesus, we are to abide, and therefore to obey. With regard to each other we are to love one another. With regard to the world, we are to witness.

Does it strike you as it does me, that the one single responsibility, the one word, which is to sum up our responsibility to the world is the word witness or testify. The totality of your responsibility to the unbelieving world, which clearly will much of the time hate you on account of this, is to testify to Jesus Christ, to witness to them, because apart form Christ, they’re headed to hell. It does not matter that much if the world will hate you for this. They will not appreciate you; they will reject you, and on occasions they may kill you. Jesus indicates that that is no excuse. That is part and parcel of the Christian life. If you will abide and therefore obey Christ, you will testify and witness.