Nobody wanted to touch this passage or lead worship on ‘the troubles’. Granville wants to sing ‘Pack up your troubles in an old kit bag and smile’! We don’t come to church to look at the world around us and be told that being connected to Jesus is going to add to our troubles. We want to hear that with Jesus everything will be sweetness and light.
That is nonsense. To believe that you have to shut your eyes to your own experience and that of others. You have also to ignore this Jesus as he reveals himself. So Jesus turns to explain how that being a servant or a friend of his will impact on us. An it faces us with the real world where Christians are persecuted, This Christmas as you eat your turkey 95 churches were burnt done on Orrissa in India and many Christians killed in the worst outbreak of militant anti-Christian Hindu extremism known. That may sound unusual but India is relatively tolerant. In many countries Christians are systematically persecuted by the state. For example Saudi Arabia will not permit any gathering of Arab Christians and there are no churches. Even here we have the incipient claim that Christianity offends so shut up and be quiet, tolerated by parliament.
Today’s reading is part of a discourse of Jesus, which Brian began last week the clue is in 14:31 when Jesus says “Come let us leave.” So this was said as they moved from the Upper Room to the Garden of Gethsemane.
Read on to the end of this passage and you end up with … in this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!” 16:33.
Can I remind you that Jesus has said “I am the vine and you are the branches” and spoken of the need for dependence on him to produce fruit.
He has introduced us to this wonderful idea that we are no longer slaves but friends as he shares what he is doing. That you are chosen by him.
We ended up last week with the simple remark. “Love each other”
This triggers Jesus to open our eyes to the consequences of being his friends or slaves, it matters not which word you use.
18"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.
It is not automatic that the world hates you but when it does, you have to hang on to the fact that this is the privilege of being a friend of Jesus. Yes I did say privilege because to share in his suffering is not redemptive but it is relational. We do not improve our acceptability to God when we are persecuted but we do experience the companionship of experiencing the same path as Jesus.
19If
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.
We need to understand what Jesus means by ‘world’. When he stepped into history (not that he was ever out of it) he divided the population into those who believed and those that did not. That is the message of John 3:16-18. God so loved the world that is every person , born in the entire history of this planet, that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. In being given new eternal life, you cease to be of this world and become part of the eternal Kingdom of God. Your spirit is born anew and your allegiance changes.
So what Jesus is saying here is that if you didn’t become a Christian you would not be isolated from friends and family. You would still be part of the knock about behaviour of the world but you would not stick out like a sore thumb and anger others.
But your allegiance has changed. You are now part of the Kingdom of God. You do not belong to the world. Your hope is in God not random evolutionary processes. Or in the case of the Christians in Orrissa, not in the traditional Gods but this new God, who arrived, in their view, on the back of imperial Britain.
Secondly, you are the chosen ones. If you read Sharpe novels, you will recognise the expression. Being a ‘chosen one’ is usually an excuse for greed, power and oppression but not here. Jesus says, “I have chosen you out of the world”. When we come to Jesus, we choose to follow him. But we soon discover that he chose us. That is a great comfort, knowing that he will not reject us, you are chosen by him. But you are chosen out of the world. Chosen to be different , chosen to stand out as exemplars of God’s grace.
20Remember
the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.
If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21They
will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who
sent me.
Jesus said 'No servant is greater than his master.' In John 13:16 which was while they were in the Upper Room. The word Master here is usually translated Lord and is important that we understand that when we call Jesus ‘Lord’ we should mean that he is our master and we are his slaves, not servants as translated here. Our relationship is that of a bought slave. Bought out of the world and given the privilege of friendship, as Jesus points out in verse 15.
So that is why the world hates you. You have being given privileges that they think they deserve. You, know that you were not entitled to salvation, any more than they were, but as you come in repentance and faith, you discover a God who describes himself as a father showering gifts on a son who ran away and squandered a third of the family fortune. You can read about that in Luke 15.
And we humans so crave the love of God, that when we see others receiving it with either want to find out how they got it or we are angry that they got it and we did not. That is the source of persecution.
So we get a series of option statements.
' If they persecuted me,
they will persecute you also.
If they obeyed my
teaching, they will obey yours also.
22If I had not
come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin.
Now, however,
they have no excuse for their sin.
24If I had not
done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.
But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have
hated both me and my Father.
In these Jesus is explaining some background to persecution. First, the gospel is divisive. If they listened to Jesus, the world would be on our side. But if the world does not like the message of Jesus, then it will persecute those who represent Jesus.
Then he tackles the issue of silence. One of the challenges of telling the Good News is that Jesus insists on a response. Jesus’ coming andour evangelism moves the goalposts. Those who hear the good news will be judged by their response to the Good News.
It goes further. The signs are part of the message. It is a real challenge to us as we do not often see miraculous sings. But in this Gospel, the signs are an essential part of the message. Today, signs and actions are jusdt as important as the words. So in our thinking about HOPE we want to do as well as talk. But when we do and when we talk, the world will explain away our actions, accept our help and reject our Saviour. Jesus says it is on that basis this world is judged. This generation is condemned. Because Jesus through the church – his body proclaims the Good News and acts out the good news but the world rejects both the actions and the message. That means our families, friends, colleagues, workmates and neighbours will be judged by their response to what you tell and what you do as followers of Jesus. The question is have we told them enough or are they only not making the choice between accepting Jesus as master or persecuting us because we are silent. The words of Mordecai, I believe are relevant here,
“If you remain silent at this time relief and deliverance.. will arise from another place, but you and your family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to this position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14
In an attempt to communicate this Good News to others, after Easter we are planning one Sunday to go out and actually share the Good news on the streets and in the car boot sales.
On another Sunday we want to go out and simply do something for the community – litter picking, or car washing or whatever, to express our love for God in offering our services freely to the community. That will need all of us to play a part and we need to be thinking of things we can do so that we share God’s love in community action and in telling the Good News.
We are also going to join with Christians worldwide in a global Day of Prayer. The prayer centre for us this year is Millwall Football Club ground. After church on Pentecost Sunday we are going by underground to a prayer meeting with a difference. Put the date in your diary and celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit in style!
Returning to Jesus’ words, he concludes with a quote from Psalms 35:19 & 69:4 ‘They hate me without cause’. A sombre summary that persecution in never justified.
26"When the Counsellor 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. 27And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
He returns to the theme of the paraclete. If you missed two weeks ago when Graeme was speaking, you will not have met this word before. Here is the summary Graeme had, which is an anglicisation of the Greek word. The problem being it does not translate well into English, It can mean comforter and lawyer at the same time.
The question is not one of semantics, but what is Jesus saying about the Holy Spirit?
Notice what he says.
When the Counsellor comes – that means he was not there then, at least
in the way Jesus was about to describe. He came in power to fill all Christians
at Pentecost. That is why we celebrate it, it reminds us that Father and Son
sent the Holy Spirit so that they could be with us and empowering us day by day
for ever.
whom I will send to you from the Father, Jesus is going to rise again and go to the
Father and Jesus will send the Holy Spirit.
the Spirit of
truth who goes out from the Father, The Holy Spirit is God He is not a tool in the Christians belt, an
add-on for charismatics, or some nice force in the world, he is the YHWH and he cannot be bought or
manipulated. While we can distinguish actions as coming from the Father or the
Son or the Holy Spirit, actually John’s gospel – our gospel tells us that they
act and work together in perfect unity.
he will testify about me. He will tell others about Jesus. Jesus says
the Holy Spirit is coming to tell people about Jesus. We know he does that
through ordinary people like you and me. Every Christian is an evangelist, just
some have a special gift for it. And just in case you think I might be
misinterpreting this he adds
27And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the
beginning.
These first disciples were called to the special task of acting as eye-witnesses. We are reading through the writings of one of those eye-witnesses. It is in reading this book, this Bible, that through the guidance of the Holy Spirit we can find the truth.
And the Holy Spirit
has not changed, he still is the Spirit of God witnessing the truth, telling
about Jesus through Christians today. You are witnesses, not to the physical
presence of Jesus but to the spiritual effect of the presence of Jesus through
the working of the Holy Spirit in bringing you to repentance and faith. As
Jesus said to the man in Gadara” Go and tell what God has done. So you need to
review your testimony, bring it up to date. Get Peter to put it on the Internet. You might think you are
boring but God has done the miracle of new birth and he wants you to tell
others what has happened. Doing that will involve you with being in harmony
with the Holy Spirit, just as doing what ever we end up doing in the Car boot
sale or on the streets will be offering yourself to be the channel of the Holy
Spirit to speak to others.
And remember it the fact that you testify to the truth that brings the hatred of the world. But unlike the world we are not here to protect ourselves, but to be witnesses, to suffer persecution, even martyrdom because we have discovered something of far greater worth than life itself - new life in Jesus.
1"All
this I have told you so that you will not go astray.
Jesus is aware that our natural reaction to persecution is to run and hide and probably think that following Jesus was not a good thing. But Jesus wants you to follow him with your eyes wide open. There will be persecution. When it comes remember I warned you.
The form it would take initially was:
2They
will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who
kills you will think he is offering a service to God.
So Jesus knew the first persecutions would come from the Jewish community. And it did and you can read about it in Acts, Stephen was martyred and then Paul went on the rampage and the Christians were forced out of Jerusalem, with the exception of the apostles. And it did not stop there. Ask any orthodox Jew today and he will tell you the Christians deserted them in the siege in Jerusalem. Christians are still hated by orthodox Jews. Later in Acts we have hints of the persecution which broke out across the Roman empire when various Caesars demanded emperor worship and Christians refused to pay homage to the emperor god.
The resurgence today of militant religion means that this verse is as relevant as ever. Militant Muslims want you dead, militant Hindus want you dead. Militant Buddhists want you dead. All in the name of their religion. Sadly political and Christian religious leaders have had the same attitude in the past and killed other religions adherents and even other Christians thinking they are doing God a favour. That is why we must not listen to leaders who ignore Jesus command to “love your enemies, do good to those who do you harm.” It is a sombre fact that persecution only needs ignition in these circumstances and that is what happened in Orrissa over Christmas, Pakistan this week, maybe Hillingdon next week. Who knows. The point Jesus is making is don’t be surprised by it, and refuse to be silent, the Holy Spirit wants you to be his voice to a dying world, the messengers of love in a world of hate, the ambassadors of hope in a day of despair.
3They will do such things because they have
not known the Father or me.
Jesus keeps coming back to the acid test, the great divide. What matters is whether you know the Father or not. Whether you know Jesus or not. Whether you have believed or not. Well, have you?
If the answer is ‘yes’ then we have to tread the path of following Jesus, driven by his love for us and the grace he has poured out. The Holy Spirit within us wants us to tell the good news. Jesus here warns us that may lead to persecution. No other leader would ever be so honest. You know the risks, do you accept the challenge?
If your answer to the question have you believed? Do you know Jesus? is ‘no’ then the Holy Spirit wants to tell you through your friends here, that even the prospect of persecution would not put off a Christian from received the love of God in Christ Jesus. We are all scared of the risks, but they are far outweighed by the joy and peace that comes from knowing God.