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

(0:13 – 1:31)

That is why the world hates you. 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. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.

If I had not come and spoke to them, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my father as well. 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. But this is to fulfil what is written in their law. They hated me without reason.

I’d like to reassure you, if you’re not here that often, that it isn’t every week that we talk about hatred. Our practise is to work through books of the Bible, and so we deal with the next passage, whatever it is, whatever it says. Last week, it was about living a fruitful life.

(1:32 – 1:52)

And this week, what to do when the world hates you. And this is not just hatred in a general sense. I guess we’ve all had experiences of being hated in life, but specifically, what to do when you’re hated as a Christian.

(1:53 – 3:38)

Now, I realise that some of us here may not be in that category of a Christian, but Jesus in John 15 is speaking specifically to his followers, and he tells them what to do when hatred comes to their door. Now, it’s not a case of if hatred comes to their door, but when it comes to their door. And this made me think, I was trying to think of an illustration.

It made me think of one of those big department stores, particularly round about Christmas time, in the likes of Silverburn, whether it’s Marks and Spencer’s, or Next, or H&M. Now, if you work in one of those department stores and are a public-facing member of staff, and I guess particularly if you are the store manager, you will face antagonism from the public. That is just a given.

That just goes with the territory. It may not be every day. It certainly won’t be your whole experience of working there, but you will face hostility if you are the public face of the store.

And Jesus is saying in today’s passage that the same will be true for his followers. His people live in the world as the public face of his kingdom. And therefore, hostility isn’t just possible, it’s inevitable.

(3:39 – 4:20)

It may not happen every day. It certainly won’t be the total experience of being a Christian, but it is part of the package of being a known Christian in the world. And so Jesus is preparing his followers for hatred.

He’s warning them to expect it, and he’s training them in how to handle it. In the same way that in that department store, they might train the staff in how to deal with irate customers. I suppose they must do that, so that they’re setting the expectation and training them in how to respond.

(4:21 – 5:26)

Now, when that training is given, it does not make the experience easy, but it does make it a little less difficult. And Jesus is doing the same thing. He wants the experience of receiving the world’s hatred to be a notch or two less difficult, because we know the things he tells us in this passage, so that we’ll bear it better, and so that we’ll continue to be his witnesses in the world.

So, what is the training Jesus gives? It’s found in John 15. Open your Bible there to the passage. Everything I’m going to say is going to come out of the passage.

And in verses 18 to 25, Jesus gives us this training, and it’s largely about knowing things. This training isn’t full of things to do. It’s full of things to think about.

(5:27 – 6:05)

And this is made explicit in verse 18. If the world hates you, keep in mind, Jesus says. Other translations translate this, know that.

There’s something to keep in mind. There’s something to know and understand that will help you cope with hatred. So, I’m going to suggest that Jesus here gives us four things to understand, not if the world hates us, but when that happens in whatever form.

(6:07 – 7:51)

So, four things to know. Number one, know that Jesus was hated first. Know that Jesus was hated first.

This is how Jesus begins. Verse 18, if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If this happens, Jesus says, keep in mind.

But it’s clear, although he uses the word if, it’s clear from a few verses later that this will happen. Because look at verse 20. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you.

Well, the world did persecute Jesus. We’ll think about that a little more in a moment. And so, therefore, it follows, the disciples will be persecuted as well.

And when it happens, the thing to keep in the front of your brain is that Jesus suffered first. And I take it, he isn’t just saying that Jesus suffered chronologically first, although that’s true. But that in some way, Jesus is the paradigm of what being hated by the world looks like.

As we read through the gospels and learn about the life of Jesus, we discover that being hated was Jesus’ lived experience. Think about this. Imagine you lived this life.

(7:51 – 8:14)

People attempt to kill you as a baby. As an adult, you preach your first sermon in your hometown, and your hometown tries to kill you. You heal people, and you do lots of good and loving things, and yet people still call you possessed by the devil.

(8:16 – 9:59)

And although you’re popular in a general sense for your miracles, your words are rejected, and your ultimate claims are rejected to be the Son of God. And of course, there is that climactic hatred. When Jesus is arrested and beaten and killed on a cross, Jesus experienced the hatred of the world first.

And I think that means that Jesus sets the pattern of what this looks like, and also that he should become our focus when we experience hostility. When we’re given a hard time for our faith, our first thought needs to be, Jesus encountered this first. Now, quite honestly, in practise, that is not so easy to do.

In those thankfully rare times when I feel I’ve been got at as a Christian, because I’m a Christian, my eyes often have looked in other places and not to Jesus. And maybe that’s been your experience too. Here’s where I tend to look.

I tend to look at the person. I tend to look at what they’re doing to me. I tend to focus on what they’re saying about me, or I focus on my circumstances and the horrible impact of what they’re doing to me.

(10:00 – 10:32)

That’s honestly where I tend to look. And yet, the author of Hebrews says, and we often forget in these beautiful verses that we often quote, that the author was writing in the context of persecution. The author of Hebrews says that we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

(10:33 – 11:08)

When the world attacks me for my faith, Jesus wants me to look to him. And what will I see when I look to Jesus? I’ll see that he loved his enemies, that he prayed for his persecutors, and that he even died, according to Romans 5, for those who were his enemies. I’ll see that Jesus persevered because he believed God’s promises of future joy.

(11:10 – 11:38)

And I’ll see that the one that I am suffering for is the one who is running the whole universe, sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. When hostility comes our way, the first thing we need to know is that Jesus was hated first. But here’s a second thing, a second thing that’s important to keep in mind, and I suppose this goes even a level deeper than that.

(11:40 – 12:31)

Know that your connection to Jesus makes hatred inevitable. Know that your connection to Jesus makes hatred inevitable. In our service last week, we spoke about, the whole sermon was about our connection to Jesus, the theme of what we called union with Christ.

You might remember that we defined a Christian, a Christian is someone spiritually connected to Jesus, in a way that brings them eternal life through faith in him. And we thought about lots of positives of that connection. The life that comes to us through union with Jesus, the joy that can be experienced through it, the fruitful and purposeful life that is possible through our connection with Christ.

(12:32 – 13:32)

And all of that is true, but it’s not the whole story. You see, the connection that brings us spiritual life could also bring us physical death. The connection that brings us the love of God’s people, which you might notice in verse 17, is actually the immediate context of this part of the passage.

He’s just talked about the love of the church family, and then he talks about the hatred of the world. The connection that brings us the love of God’s people is the same connection that can bring us the world’s hatred, and it’s all because of our connection to Jesus. I was watching a TV programme the other day, and there was this young woman on it who said that one of her parents was a well-known celebrity.

(13:33 – 14:00)

And because of her connection to that parent, because she had the name, and she was known to belong to them, she said that people treated her in a certain way all of her life, sometimes positively, but oftentimes negatively. And it was nothing to do with her in herself. It was entirely to do with who she was connected to.

(14:01 – 14:20)

And Jesus is making a similar point here. The reason his disciples will be hated is because of their connection to him. Or as he words it in verse 19, it’s because they belong to him, not to the world.

(14:22 – 14:35)

That girl who was related to this celebrity, she belonged to her parents by birth. These disciples weren’t part of Jesus’ original family. They don’t belong to him by birth.

(14:36 – 15:39)

They belong to him by grace. And it’s because they belong to Jesus that they are hated as he was hated. And verse 20 contains a very similar idea, except the image here is that of a master and a servant.

In the ancient world, about a third of the population were slaves. And the etiquette was that masters would be treated better than their servants, because the view was that they were higher on the social ladder. And so Jesus’ point is that if he, the master, has been hated by the world, then his servants won’t be treated any better.

That is never going to happen. If the master is persecuted, then his slaves will be persecuted too. Why? Because they’re connected to him.

(15:41 – 15:58)

Jesus is being so honest about the cost of being connected to him. He’s giving us the true cost. I don’t know if many of you are tempted by the Black Friday deals.

(16:00 – 18:06)

They are rarely as good as they look. If you do a bit of research, and you should, and you track the price over many months, you discover that often the great deal you’re getting on Black Friday is what the price was four months ago. And then they artificially raised it, and then they dropped it to make you think it was an amazing deal.

They hide the true cost of the item. Jesus never does that. Jesus puts the bill on the table, and he says, this will be the cost of being connected to me.

And it turned out to be the cost. As far as we can gather from church history, it appears that 10 of the 11 disciples who Jesus is speaking to here were martyred for their faith. Only one of them died in their own bed.

So this teaching wasn’t theoretical. Jesus isn’t, you know, he’s not over egging the pudding here. He is preparing them for a very hard reality.

And it is a hard reality that continues in some parts of the world even today. If you live in sub-Saharan Africa, or parts of Asia, or parts of the Middle East, becoming a convert to Christ is like signing your own death warrant. And such Christians need to see that their suffering is not pointless.

It is profound. It’s not just that Jesus suffered before them, but actually in a profound way, they suffer with Christ, with him, in their union with him, and because of that union. You know, people who get that have a very different mindset.

(18:08 – 18:28)

I was listening fairly recently to a Christian from a country where quite a lot of people are dying for their faith as Christians. One of these countries in the very top tier of persecution. And this man, this guy is endangered himself when he goes back to his country.

(18:28 – 18:54)

He’s always in danger of becoming a martyr. And the interviewer asked him, what should the church in the West be praying for you? And the man said, if death comes because of my faith, pray that I will not renounce my faith in Jesus. Pray that I will be faithful till the end.

(18:56 – 19:21)

Someone can only pray that if they have a profound understanding of their connection to Jesus Christ. And if they have a bigger picture than the here and the now. But you know, back to our land, where let’s be honest, the cost is not nearly that high.

(19:23 – 19:42)

And yet I think even here, we increasingly do need to have a bigger picture of our connection to Christ, even here. And I’m very aware that in a church like this, we will have a range of experiences of hostility. Some of us might have been very sheltered.

(19:44 – 20:23)

And some of us less so, in terms of suffering for our faith. Let me just add an important qualifier that I must say in this sermon, incidentally. This is about being mistreated because of your faith, and only because of your faith.

Look at verse 21, Jesus said, it’s because of my name. That’s the only reason that this kind of persecution comes. So this is not because I have poor character and people just don’t like me, because I’ve got bad character.

(20:25 – 20:54)

I remember years ago, speaking to a guy. He was going around church telling everybody that he was being persecuted at work for Jesus. And he was being a bold evangelist.

There was lots of maybe good things he was doing. But actually, as he described the manner in which he spoke to people, and the manner in which he did or didn’t do his job, I thought, actually, I think I would persecute him at work too, if I was there. And I’m a Christian as well.

(20:56 – 21:51)

Let’s be sure if hatred comes, it’s only because of our connection to Jesus. But of course, within that, there is a range to this. From the minor end of the register, the subtle dig, the little jab, to the higher end of the register, where maybe someone calls you or considers you to be a bigot for just holding to Christian views that are 2,000 years old and in the Bible.

Or when we’re socially ostracised and distanced, or even cut off from family or relationships because of our faith. Now, thankfully, this does not happen to everyone. There is a wide range of different experiences.

(21:53 – 22:19)

But in the worst scenarios, this can be emotionally devastating for people. Even if it’s a far cry from the physical suffering of our brothers and sisters elsewhere, it is no small matter to be shunned by, for example, your parents, or previously close friends. So in whatever form it takes, Jesus says, look to me.

(22:20 – 23:04)

And whatever it looks like, Jesus says, remember you’re connected to me. And bear in mind that that connection also means blessing as well as suffering. Notice at the end of verse 20, just before we leave this point, Jesus circles back to something positive.

He says, if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. Of course, not everyone obeyed the teaching of Jesus. He preached and some people rejected, many people rejected him.

But the opposite was also true. I mean, these disciples are the very example of that. They had obeyed Jesus’ command to repent and believe.

(23:05 – 24:33)

And in the same way, these disciples would preach and many would obey their message in repentance and faith. This is basically, this verse is basically what happens in the book of Acts, right? These really ordinary men with no authority in themselves, because they’re connected to Jesus, are listened to and a church is born. So in this darkest section of farewell teaching, Jesus is giving a very balanced picture of union with Christ.

It will bring blessing, but it will also bring suffering. Now thirdly, third thing let’s press on that we need to bear in mind is know that the problem isn’t really with you. Know that the problem isn’t really with you.

It looks like the problem’s with you, but it’s not with you. So look at verse 21, they will treat you in this way because of my name. Jesus says, they’re only treating you badly because of the name you bear.

Their real problem is with me. And actually it’s even deeper than that. This is a bit like, you know, when the archaeologists dig and they find another layer and then they keep going and they find another layer.

(24:34 – 25:35)

Well, this is like that. The top layer is the disciple is hated. You go down a layer, it’s really Jesus they hate.

But if you dig even further down, there’s also someone else they hate. Verse 21, for they do not know the one who sent me. And verse 23, whoever hates me hates the father as well.

And verse 24, they have hated both me and my father. The disciple is hated. Underneath that is hatred of Jesus.

But underneath the hatred of Jesus is the fact that his father who sent him is the one being despised. That is the underlying root problem. On the surface, it looks like Christians being bullied, but the ultimate problem that the persecutor has is with God himself.

(25:38 – 25:56)

And just note this, when we hear this, we might think that this is just speaking of people who kind of obviously reject God. That’s maybe how we hear this in a kind of Western secular culture. We might be thinking of, for instance, people who are atheists and just outright reject God.

(25:56 – 26:42)

It may include them, but actually in the original context, what’s the shocking thing is that most of the early persecutors of Christians were highly religious. They thought they knew God. We’ll see this when Jesus is put to death.

It’s a religious court who condemns him. People who thought they were doing God a favour by killing Jesus. You see, the real test of whether someone knows God or not, hates God or doesn’t, is their attitude towards Jesus, the one the Father has sent into the world.

(26:44 – 27:41)

Do we accept Jesus for who he claimed to be, the Messiah or the Son of God? Or do we say, I’m not so sure? Or I think that’s nonsense. This passage is saying that if we say that latter thing about Jesus, that ultimately, that’s an antipathy towards Jesus. And ultimately, it’s an antipathy towards the Father himself.

At the deepest heart level, we actually oppose the God who made us. And notice this, that this is despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I think verse 22, which looks like a tricky verse, is explained when we think of this as kind of a mountain of evidence that’s being rejected.

(27:42 – 29:09)

Jesus had given this mountain of evidence to the people of his day, which they still rejected. Jesus says, if I hadn’t come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, Jesus isn’t saying that if he never came into the world, these people would be objectively sinless or guiltless.

His point is that he had come, he had spoken God’s words to them. He had shown them the miracles that demonstrate that he was God. And yet these folks still rejected Jesus.

And so they were guilty of the sin of denying a mountain of evidence that pointed to Jesus as Messiah. If anyone had no excuse to reject Jesus, it was them. And the fact they hadn’t accepted Jesus revealed their underlying attitude to him and their underlying attitude to God.

And so speaking from this perspective of the Christian, when people mistreat you for your faith, you need to see that there’s a deeper thing going on in their hearts. There’s a deeper layer to the problem. The problem is not with you.

The problem is with God himself. And you’re just the public face of that. And that’s why you’re on the receiving end of it.

(29:11 – 31:00)

Knowing that can make it just a little easier to bear, I think. So that’s the third thing to understand. Number one, Jesus was hated first.

Number two, your connection to Jesus makes hatred inevitable. Number three, the problem’s not really with you. And number four, God remains in control when you’re hated without reason.

God remains in control when you’re hated for no reason. Now, I’m seeing the God in control bits in the fact that Jesus quotes from a psalm in verse 25. And he says, this psalm is fulfilled.

See that in verse 25? Jesus is probably quoting from Psalm 69 here, which is a psalm of King David. And David speaks in that psalm of being hated for no reason. Now, Jesus, a thousand years later, is quoting the same psalm.

And he says, God’s word is being fulfilled. Or as he puts it, the law is being fulfilled in what is happening to me. In other words, Jesus is saying that David’s actual experience was also prophetic.

It also pointed forward to Jesus, David’s descendant. Yes, this did speak of David, but it ultimately pointed forward in a greater way to how Jesus would be treated, hated without reason. Jesus, the only man who lived with absolute integrity, hated without reason.

(31:02 – 32:24)

If God spares us till after Christmas, we will see in the trial of Jesus that there was no good reason why he was condemned. And yet, that very hatred fulfilled the promise of Scripture. Somehow, that awful and baseless hatred was part of God’s bigger plan to save the world.

Because that hatred led to Jesus going to the cross, where he died as a substitute for people who don’t love God as they should. People who like me. God had a bigger plan.

He was in sovereign control, even over this baseless attack on Jesus. And actually, this is comforting for us, I think, on a secondary level. Because while this was most true of Jesus, it was also true of David.

It was his experience as a believer. And it’s often true of our experience as Jesus’ people. I think one of the hardest parts of that negative experience of being hated at some level for our faith is seeing that there’s no good reason that someone’s treating us that way.

(32:26 – 33:12)

There’s nothing in our behaviour, there’s nothing in what we’re saying or doing that deserves it. Sure, we can see divine reasons and deeper reasons, whether it’s our connection to God or his greater purposes. We can know all of that’s true.

But it’s still really hard at a human level to be hated for no good reason. Maybe you’ve been through stuff like that. Maybe you’re going through stuff like that.

Or maybe you’re the spouse of someone that’s experiencing that. Or the friend of the most gracious Christian, and they’re being treated like rubbish just because of their faith. It’s an absolutely rubbish feeling.

(33:13 – 34:50)

But we need to understand that Jesus knows it too well. He was hated without a cause, and yet he was comforted by the fact that God was still in control. God was even fulfilling his promises in that very hatred.

Now, of course, none of this is a magic pill. Knowing this will not make our experience of hostility easy, but it might make it just a little less difficult. It might just make all the difference to help us keep going as a Christian and to keep afloat in the water.

But as we come to the end, as we focus so much on, I suppose, on the angle of being on the receiving end of being hated for Jesus, I think it would be remiss to finish without asking, but what about from the other side of things? And maybe just finishing with the question, is there then any hope for haters of Jesus? And not just the really blatant examples of haters, but as we’ve been thinking in this passage, actually hatred comes in all sorts of forms. It’s not just somebody that’s obviously hostile. And maybe as we’re sitting here this morning, we’re realising, well, if the category for hatred is someone who doesn’t give their full allegiance to Jesus, then maybe I am in that category.

(34:51 – 35:40)

Well, is there any hope for people in that position? There is a famous example in the life of a man named Saul. Maybe you’ve heard this story, I don’t know. But Saul was living at the time of Jesus.

He was a very religious person. He was a Jewish man. And, Saul didn’t think that Jesus was the Messiah.

He didn’t think that he was the son of God. And because he hated Jesus, he therefore hated the people of Jesus. And Saul goes in this campaign to literally lead the persecution of the Christian church, going from town to town and city to city, arresting people and even supervising their deaths.

(35:42 – 36:50)

And one day Saul, more famously known as Paul, was travelling to a city called Damascus and Jesus appeared to him. And Jesus said to him, Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me? It wasn’t really the church that Saul was persecuting. It was ultimately Jesus himself that he had the issue with.

And at that wonderful moment, Saul’s eyes were opened and he saw Jesus for the first time as he really is, as the son of God, as the Lord of glory, and as his personal saviour. The persecutor became a believer and the hater became a lover of Christ. And eventually, it’s a very long story and I will not give you the whole of Paul’s life, but eventually he lays down his life for Jesus.

(36:54 – 37:16)

And so if we’re here this morning and we have the realisation that Saul had, Paul had, that we’ve seen Jesus totally wrong, there is grace available to us today. There can be a Damascus road moment for us today. And that’s how it needs to be for some people.

(37:16 – 37:52)

I mean, for some folk it’s a gradual thing coming to faith, but for some of us, we think of Jesus one way and we need that dramatic moment of revelation to say, “Ah!, this is who Jesus really is”. And what position do we find ourselves this morning? The Bible says, you either belong to Jesus as his friend, or you’re still an enemy of Jesus. The wonderful news of the gospel is that enemies can become friends and haters can become family.

(37:53 – 38:12)

May that be each of our experience as we respond to this message today. Just a moment of quiet. Father, help us to respond to your word to us today.

(38:13 – 38:38)

Help us to see who Jesus really is. Help us to not only trust in him, but then to bear his name, whatever the cost may be. Help us to fix our eyes on Jesus today.

And as we go into another week of living for him, we ask this in his name. Amen.

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