Sermon Tone Analysis

If the World Hates You

Text: John 15:18-25; 2 Timothy 4:7-8

Theme: Christians and persecution and responding to it

Date: 11/01/15 File name: If_The_World_Hate_You.wpd

ID Number: 160

In our passage from John’s Gospel, our text for the morning is part of an extended time of last-minute summation of Jesus’ teachings immediately following The Passover meal at which he instituted the Lord’s Supper.

It is the last night of his life.

He begins with a comforting word to his disciples about preparing a place for them at the beginning of chapter 14 and concluded in chapter 17 with a glorious, high-priestly prayer for himself and his disciples — those with him and those in succeeding generations.

During this summation he reminds the Disciples of the results of faith in him.

• 1st, Faith in Jesus results in a radical change.

When Christ enters a sinner’s life by repentance and faith, there is a radical change.

It may not appear physically obvious to friend or neighbor or family, but the change is as radical as radical can be.

You’ve gone from death to life!

Starting in verse 18, Jesus says, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.”

This world is not your home, you’re just passing through.

You no longer belong to the world though you remain in the world.

The loyalty of your heart as shifted to a new king, and new homeland, and you’ll never feel entirely comfortable in this one any longer.

• 2nd, Faith in Jesus results in a radical challenge.

Because there has been this radical change in us — which is Christ in us the hope of glory — there is the challenge of relating to a culture and world system that sees us as the enemy.

The love between the Christian and our Christ alienates us from the world.

One of the things people on the outside of Christianity can’t understand is our exclusive truth claim — uttered first by Jesus himself — that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and the no one comes to God except through him.

From the outside — from the culture’s point of view, that looks incredibly narrow minded in what is supposed to be a pluralistic society.

Neither does the world understand our renunciation of much of what the world has to offer.

Like Christian passing through Vanity Fair we advert our eyes from the goods and wares of the world, and the vendors become incensed that we won’t purchase their products.

Our challenge is to communicate to the world why our love for Jesus keeps us from purchasing what the world wants us to buy.

• 3rd, Faith in Jesus results in a radical conflict.

Precisely because we don’t “buy into” the world’s ways, the world’s philosophies, and the world’s activities, they will never understand you.

In some cases that lack of understanding will become hostility; in some cases they will kill us.

In vs. 20 Jesus tells the disciples, “Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.'

If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also ... They will treat you this way because of my name ... “ The world doesn’t like us because we will never put the world first.

You may have a lot of trouble in this world because you won’t put your company first, because you won’t put your race first, because you won’t put your political party first, or even because you won’t put your family first.

You can’t, because you see, there’s a Lord, and his name is Jesus, and he’s your first love and your greatest loyalty.

This radical conflict frequently results in persecution.

So there’s a radical conflict which is caused by a radical change, and that radical change makes possible a radical challenge for us to enter into the world and to testify to what Jesus has done for us.

And when you do, don’t be surprised when there is a radical reaction.

!

I. THE FACE OF PERSECUTION

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to

God and not to us.

8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh."

(2 Corinthians 4:7-11, ESV)

1. when we think of persecution we may think of Old Testament saints – particularly the prophets – who were persecuted for their faith and their messages

a. Jesus speaks of this in Matthew 5:12 “ ... for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

b. the Apostle Paul, writing in the Book of Hebrews, says of the Old Testament prophets:

"Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison.

They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword.

They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— the world was not worthy of them.

They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground."

(Hebrews 11:36-38, NIV)

2. when we think of persecution most of us think of the early Christians being fed to the Lions in the Roman Colosseum

a. actually, very few Christians were ever killed in the Colosseum

1) it was the Circus Maximus – the arena where the chariot races were run – were most of the Christians of Rome were tortured and killed

ILLUS.

For the first 200 years persecution of the church was sporadic and regional.

The chief persecutors were zealous Jews like Saul before his conversion.

It was the Roman Emperors Diocletian and Galerius who instituted the first Empire-wide persecution of believers in the early 4th century.

It’s known as The Great Persecution.

Beginning with a series of edicts banning Christian practices and ordering the imprisonment of Christian clergy, the persecution intensified until all Christians in the empire were commanded to sacrifice to the gods or face immediate execution.

Over 20,000 Christians are thought to have died during Diocletian's reign.

3. we may even think of some of the great persecutions in history

ILLUS.

A Catholic missionary by the name of Francis Xavier first introduced Christianity to Japan in 1549.

More missionaries followed and soon a thriving Church of 300,000 existed in Japan.

In 1633 the Shogun Tokugasa signed an edict outlawing the Christian faith, and he vowed to crush the Church in Japan.

Over the next several years thousands were executed and thousands died in prisons and many were exiled.

As is always the case, the Church went underground.

In 1865, when Japan was opened to the western nations for trading, there were an estimated 60,000 Christians in Japan.

These Christian communities had perpetuated the faith in hiding for two centuries.

ILLUS.

One of the most horrendous acts of carnage took place on the other side of the

world in France–a Christian nation.

In this case it was Christian persecuting Christian.

We’ve come to call the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.

In October 1572 French Catholics went on a Holocaust-type rampage, killing every Protestant they could find.

Men, women, and children fell in heaps before the mobs and bloodthirsty troops.

In one week, over 100,000 Protestants perished.

It is said that the rivers of France are so filled with corpses that for many months no Frenchmen ate fish.

In the valley of the Loire, wolves came down from the mountains to feed upon the bodies.

ILLUS.

In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion in China saw 189 missionaries and their children, and 32,000 Chinese Christians are martyred.

ILLUS.

Between 1894-1923 the Ottoman Empire conducted a policy of genocide against the Christian population living within its territory.

The Sultan, Abdul Hamid II, issued an official governmental policy of genocide against the Christian Armenians in 1894.

Over the next thirty years, systematic massacres took place, and 1.5 million Christians were slaughtered.

ILLUS.

During the 20th century, the Communist dictators of the Soviet Union systematically set out to destroy any vestige of the Church in Russia.

Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools.

It is estimated that some 20 million Christians (17 million Orthodox 3 million Roman catholic) died or were interned in gulags.

4. in Western culture, we no longer see this kind of persecution

a. we have stopped burning people at the stake

b. we have stopped disjointing people on the rack

c. we no longer have inquisitions

5. when Jesus says, “rejoice when you are persecuted” most of us really don’t understand what that means

a. however, millions of Christians around the world do

6. in this passage Jesus reveals that persecution has many faces to it

!! A. THE BIBLE SPEAKS OF PERSECUTION BY CRUEL ACT

1. though most of us will never experience real physical persecution of the kind our Christian forefathers did, many fellow believers around the world are not so lucky

a. in Matthew 10:16-36 Jesus paints a picture of what many saints are experiencing

• “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.