“If they hate you” – John 15 v 18-27 – How do disciples relate to the world?

 

JOHN 15 PART 3

Verses 1-11 dealt with the disciples’ relationship with Jesus.

Verses 12-17 incorporated into that connection the relationships disciples should have with one another.

Verses 18-27 address the disciples’ place in the world.

These three sections are progressive. We start with our relationship with Jesus. Everything starts there. He is the cornerstone of the church. He is the foundation on which the apostles built. And we must build our lives on his teachings. Jesus made that very clear when he talked about wise and foolish builders. It is the wise builder who builds his life on Jesus’ teachings. We start here in our relationship with Jesus as the first stage of fellowship with others or any ministry we may become involved in. We absolutely must be totally connected to Jesus the true vine before we go any further, and we must stay connected. Remain in him.

The chapter then progresses as Jesus tells his disciples to love one another, and you don’t have to spend too long around fellow brothers and sisters to realise you will need supernatural help to show unconditional love to our brothers and sisters in Christ! If we have got the first section right and we are connected to Jesus and we find our identity in him, we are able to love one another. When Andrea and I are both close to God our marriage is far more harmonious. It’s the same with any two Christians or group of Christians. Remain in him and enjoy fellowship with others.

So today we come to look at the third section in this chapter. But remember the progression: we are first connected to Jesus, then to one another, so we can relate to the world correctly.

And correct does not always mean comfortable. But if we are truly abiding in Christ and in fellowship with one another as this passage instructs, we will find it the most natural thing to prioritise his kingdom over our own comfort.

Let’s read:

¹⁸ ‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.

Oh! And things were going so well up to now! We were loving Jesus and loving one another, and now he has to spoil it with this! The world might hate us. At least it’s an ‘if’ not a ‘when’? Might we escape being hated by the world? Read on…

 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.

That feels a lot like a ‘when’ the world hates us rather than an ‘if’. God gives us the reason we might be hated here in scripture. It’s because we belong to him and not the world.

We are chosen to be holy, set apart, different from the rest of the world, because we no longer belong to it. This means we do things differently. We don’t cheat, lie, or steal. We don’t want revenge. We forgive rather than hold grudges. We challenge laws that go against biblical standards. We refuse to lie for our boss, and he hates that! We bring the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, into every place we go. And if there is a spirit of darkness in that place we will inevitably meet with opposition.

This is not an isolated idea here in these verses: in Matthew 10:22 Jesus says, “You will be hated by everyone because of my name, but the one who perseveres to the end will be saved.” Well we can persevere to the end if we remain in him and in fellowship with one another. And we’ll do more than just persevere. With the Holy Spirit’s help we are called to testify about Jesus, as we’ll see in the final verse of this chapter.

You may be thinking, the world doesn’t seem to hate me. In fact, when the church does good in the community we can even find favour with the world. That is indeed true. But what Jesus is saying was definitely true for his immediate readers, and there must be a sense in which something about us challenges other people. If not, how are we even different from the world? I don’t think we were ever meant to be stealth Christians. The way God sees things is pretty clear cut: James 4:4 asks, “Do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever chooses to be a friend of the world renders himself an enemy of God.”

I’ve been thinking about a phrase I first heard decades ago: ‘seeker sensitive’. Churches realised that their services were not very accessible to the uninitiated. As generations grew up not going to church it became more of a big step for people to go inside a church building, or as one person I knew described it, a ‘spooky God-box’.

So we made sure we had a warm welcome, avoided jargon, and served better coffee. All that is really important. Especially the coffee. But the danger is that in some cases we can also try to avoid confrontation. We won’t use offensive language like, ‘sin’ or ‘hell’. It’s very important to show love and acceptance to new people. But at some point they need to hear the same gospel that Jesus preached.

The other issue I have developed with the seeker sensitive idea is that I have seen such sensitivity as a replacement for the Holy Spirit. What if a new person comes in to a service that is less than polished but can sense the presence of God in the place?

So I was thinking about this phrase today, ‘seeker sensitive’ as I’ve felt challenged in my own style not to be ‘over sensitive’. I’d rather deliver the awkward truth in love now than have someone at the end of time look over at me and ask why I hadn’t made all this more plain.

The other thought I had about this phrase was that not all converts are even seekers. In trying to be seeker sensitive we are assuming people are seeking in the first place. What about Saul of Tarsus? Was he seeking God? And how sensitive was God when he stopped him on the road to Damascus? There may be some people God is trying to reach through us outside of a church meeting. Were the disciples looking for Jesus or did he come for them?

And what about those who are actually seekers? They still need to hear the full gospel. Like the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8 who was reading scripture and wanted help understanding it? Philip was sent to him by God and he shared the good news about Jesus with him. He was baptised that day! To get to the point of baptism in one day must have meant a preaching of the full gospel.

All I’m saying is that the world may hate us, and it’s not always a bad thing. It probably means we haven’t got too seeker sensitive. We can try too hard to be liked and compromise who we really are.

Let’s not become so seeker sensitive or people pleasing that we compromise what we say we believe so that we become accepted by them. The idea isn’t for people to like us, it’s for them to find Jesus. In fact the best way for them to really love us is to become another branch in the vine, not for us to reach out to them at such a stretch that we ourselves become less attached to the vine than before.

 

Back to the text…

²⁰ Remember what I told 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.

I know that in the previous section Jesus has told his disciples that he no longer calls them servants but friends. But he has used this saying several times throughout the gospels and he’s quoting it again to make this important point – if we want to be Christ’s followers, we can’t expect to escape the treatment that Christ received. The way people treat the leader is often the way they will treat the follower. If I told you I’d voted a certain way in an election you might judge me according to how you judge the person I’d voted for. If you declare your commitment to Jesus, you’ll be judged in line with the world’s treatment of Jesus.

So it’s kind of a compliment if we are made fun of, ridiculed, or even discriminated against because of our faith. It means that something of the spirit in the world sees us as representing Jesus.

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; but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ Whoever hates me hates my Father as well.

Some of this teaching may be hard to swallow. But it’s here in the bible and we should face it head on. We may not feel persecuted right now, but there are moments in every committed Christian’s life – even here in merry old England – when we feel the force of opposition to our faith.

But let’s just gain a bit of perspective here. They hate God the Father too. Surely he feels more pain than us about this. He rejoices that we are his, and there is more rejoicing in heaven when one sinner turns to God. But for those who refuse to listen to him there must be such grief and heartache at the sinner who hates him.

God the Father sees our pain when the world hates us. He also feels it first-hand because they hate him too. If we keep an eternal perspective on this we know that one day we will be with him in eternal bliss. All we have to do for now is persevere, staying connected to Jesus and to one another, bearing witness to the goodness of God, praying that those who hate him will turn to him.

²⁴ If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But this is to fulfil what is written in their Law: “They hated me without reason.”

Jesus has mentioned both his words (v22) and his works (v24). Because of what he has said and done, those who saw and heard and yet rejected him are even more guilty of sin than they were before. Now they have seen the truth in plain sight their rejection is even more acute.

Anyone who knows you will also see God in you as long as you stay connected to the vine. You may not feel like it, and neither did I until a friend from school got saved and told me he and his friends always knew there was something different about me – in a good way. People do see Jesus in the disciple who follows sincerely – despite their faults. And to see Jesus and not pursue him is a form of rejection.

That last quote from Jesus there in verse 25 is found twice in the Psalms. They hated Jesus without reason, and they may hate us too. The fact that Jesus refers to these quotes as coming from “their Law” means he’s talking about the Jews. Which would have been confusing to his first disciples because they too were Jewish, as was Jesus!

Confusing to them maybe, but for us we can see what a radical statement it is. He’s indirectly saying that anyone who doesn’t follow Jesus, abide in him, and connect to the Christian community, is of the world, even if they are Jewish!

Anyway, the general message is that people who don’t follow Jesus will hate him, hate God and hate Jesus’ disciples. Your non-Christian friends might not show it, but as far as God sees it, they hate you, because the most important thing in all the world is to love Him and know him for eternity. You are his child and for your friend to disregard your Father is an insult. To turn your back on an escape from hell and an offer of eternal life is an expression of hatred to God and those who follow him.

So how might we live our lives knowing this? We need the Holy Spirit. We need an advocate. We need help! And we have what we need!

²⁶ ‘When the Advocate 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.

The word translated ‘Advocate’ also means counsellor, intercessor, helper, one who encourages and comforts. The Holy Spirit is here to help us bear witness so that even those who hate God and us will come to know him and love him too.

There’s some real food for thought here in these verses.

Jesus first calls his disciples to abide in him. Let’s start there and continue there. From this abiding we are able to enjoy healthy fellowship, loving one another. And with such a healthy community we are able to witness to the world and share God’s love even to those who hate us.

Final instructions:

1. Stay closer to Jesus than you are to anyone or anything else.
2. Don’ t worry if people hate what you stand for – it’s a sign you’re more like Jesus!
3. Don’t try to witness without the Holy Spirit.