Messages
Become Hated and Helped (John 15:18-16:4)
Pastor Joe Sanders, May 13, 2012Part of the Become series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
We kind of expect to have troubles in this life. Its the way this world operates and every belief system has an accounting for bad circumstances- luck, karma, coincidence. Lots of words to describe the way this world is rarely fair and often is full of trouble. We also expect some people to just be mean. Some people are just not nice and they have it out for you, and they can be bitter and cruel enemies. Still others, and probably the hardest kind of trouble and difficulty to deal with, is the hatred and cruelty of people directed toward you when you have done nothing toward them but good. You have gone out of your way to provide for them and to the best of your ability you have looked out for their good, but for some unknown reason they hate you, abuse you, deny you, revile you, hurt you. Being a Christian involves being treated like this, not because we are offensive but because our master and his message are offensive.
| Earlier: | Same day: | Later: |
|---|---|---|
| « Become a Loving Friend | None | Become Helped by the Spirit » |
John 15:18-16:4
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
16:1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.
“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. (ESV)