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The Blue Letter Bible

Chuck Smith :: Sermon Notes for John 15:18

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I. "IF THE WORLD HATES YOU."
A. Jesus had earlier said to His disciples, "In this world you will have tribulation." Jn. 16:33.
1. Satan is in control of the world, he is called the god of this age, and Satan hates God.
2. Because you are of God, Satan hates you.
3. He hates righteousness, and all that is good.
4. Satan desires to destroy God; as God's child, he would like to destroy you.
B. Why would the world hate you?
1. Because you are not of this world.
a. There is something perverse in human nature that seeks to pick on or bully the one who is different.
b. We see it manifested in little children on the playground.
c. If there is someone who is timid or weak or a misfit, the children will often pick on them unmercifully.
d. I can remember children calling others "four eyes" who had to wear glasses.
e. You are a misfit in this world, at least I hope you are.
f. If you are comfortable or feel at home in this world, I think that you should carefully examine your relationship with the Lord.
g. Jesus said, "I am not of this world," and later as He was praying He said, "I have given them Your word and the world hated them because they are not of this world even as I am not of this world."
h. We read of Lot, whose righteous spirit was vexed by the way people were living around him.
2. Because they identify you with Jesus, and they hate Jesus.
C. Why did they hate Jesus?
1. Because of the things that He said to them.
a. He exposed their hypocrisy.
b. He took the mask off of their sin.
c. He condemned the things they loved, the earthly, sensual things.
d. He declared the path to true happiness was through self-denial, not self-indulgence.
2. Because they really hated the Father.
a. "He that hates Me, hates My Father also."
b. "They hate both Me and My Father."
c. A heart or life that is in league with Satan is at war with God.
d. Jesus represented the Father both in the words He said and in the works He did.
e. In giving to them the words of the Father, and doing among them the works of the Father, it stirred up their ungodly wrath against Him.
3. Prior to the coming of Jesus, they might have pleaded innocent by reason of ignorance.
4. Now that they have heard the word of God, and have seen the work of God, there is no more excuse for their ungodly lifestyles.
5. Exposed as sinners and rank hypocrites, they hate the light that has exposed them, and they seek to extinguish the light.
6. Hence, their endeavor on many occasions to kill Jesus.
7. Now you are standing before them in Jesus' stead, and you declare to them the Word of God and you manifest to them the work of God and as they hated Him they will also hate you. As they sought to destroy Him they will seek also to destroy you.
II. "IF YOU WERE OF THIS WORLD, THE WORLD WOULD LOVE ITS OWN."
A. If you will approve the ungodly speech, and actions of the wicked they will love you, you will be hailed as a wonderful person.
1. If you consent and go along to the parties where they are boozing it up, and sexually stimulating one another, you will be welcomed.
2. If you will laugh at their filthy jokes, and their suggestive innuendoes, and share a few of your own, you will be accepted and loved.
a. James said, "You adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that friendship with the world is enmity with God? And whoever is a friend of the world, is an enemy of God."
b. You must choose between being a friend of the world, or the friend of God.
B. I was thinking of how the world loves a fight.
1. The public will pay millions of dollars to see two men get into a small ring and seek to pound the other into senselessness.
2. Men breed and train dogs to fight in a bull pit.
3. Men breed cocks to tear other cocks to shreds.
4. You may be at an exciting point in a game and a fight breaks out among the spectators, and all of the attention is immediately diverted to the fight in the stands.
5. Jesus came speaking peace and they hated Him.
6. If you are a brawler, the world will love you, but if you seek to break up a fight, the world will jeer you.
III. "BECAUSE I HAVE CHOSEN YOU OUT OF THIS WORLD."
A. Earlier in the same chapter Jesus had said to them, "You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you and ordained that you should be My disciples."
1. Now He is declaring that He has chosen them out of this world.
2. Peter said that He has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
3. I am not to love the world or the things that are in the world, for he that has the love of the world in his heart has not the love of the Father. He has chosen me out of this world.
4. The psalmist said, "He has taken me out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and has established my goings."
B. I am so glad that He has chosen me out of this world.
1. I have found that the closer I walk to Jesus, the more I hate the world.
2. Living in this world has almost become unbearable, and if it were not for the other Christians and the Christian influence in the world, it would be unbearable.
3. Some corrupted evil soul stole a car right out of the parking lot today as the mother was delivering her small child to their class.
4. Lawlessness grows daily, and the government which is supposed to fight against evil only aids and abets it with new laws to protect the guilty.
5. This past week our state legislature which is supposed to represent us, voted special rights for homosexuals and lesbians, saying that you cannot discriminate against them in housing or jobs. This law was signed by our governor who cowardly bowed to the pressure of the strong homosexual community who have been seeking these special privileges for many years.I favor equal rights, but special rights is idiocy. So much for elected officials and so much for this corrupt world.
IV. "THE SERVANT IS NOT GREATER THAN HIS LORD."
A. I think in the realm of prayer how so many people think that they can get by successfully without it, when our Lord saw such a great need for it in His own personal life.
1. To me, one of the greatest arguments for the necessity for prayer is that Jesus prayed.
2. The servant is not greater than His Lord.
B. This, of course, was said in context of that attitude that the world had toward Him of hatred.
1. If they hated Him, your Lord, they will hate you, His servant.
2. If the world would not listen to Him, they will not listen to you.
3. Then why should we even waste our time and energy trying to reach the world?
4. For even as there were those in His days who were sick of the world and thirsting for something better, there are those today waiting to hear the message of God's love and better life for them, if they will but just call upon Him.
5. But how can they call upon Him of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear unless someone tells them?
C. Jesus was not successful in turning the world system to righteousness and neither will we be, the servant is not greater than his Lord.
1. If the world rejected Him, it will reject you.
2. If the world hated Him, the world will hate you.
3. If the world persecuted Him, the world will persecute you.
4. If the world kept My saying, they will keep yours.
a. Some have a difficulty here thinking that this is perhaps contradictory.
b. Jesus said, "If they kept My saying." Obviously they did not keep His sayings, for they crucified Him and they will not keep your sayings either. They will not heed your words anymore than they heeded the words of Jesus.
Sermon Notes for John 15:16 ← Prior Section
Sermon Notes for John 15:26 Next Section →
Sermon Notes for Luke 1:5 ← Prior Book
Sermon Notes for Acts 1 Next Book →
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