Nov. 12, 2017 PM Service As To The Father, So Also To The Son by Pastor Josh Sheldon

In chapter 15, this morning we will look at John chapter 15 and go through John 16 verse 4.

These are the words of our Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed, the night before his crucifixion.

And he says to his disciples, If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you are 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.

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. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.

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.

Whoever hates me hates my father also. 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. But the word that is written in the law must be fulfilled.

They hated me without a cause. 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.

And you also will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. I've said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.

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.

And they will do these things because they have not known the father nor me. But I've said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you.

What a blessed comfort it is to know that all things are in the hand of God, our

Savior. These verses in chapter 15, verses 1 through 17, they end with the command to love one another as Christ has loved us.

We ended with that last week. And after that, love one another as I have loved you.

And this clear command that we discussed at some length last week, then in these verses before us, verse 18 to 27, he speaks of the hatred that the world has for God and his people.

So love one another as I have loved you, says Jesus to we who are in him, in Christ.

And immediately the whole subject changes from love to its opposite, to hatred.

We're warned now all of a sudden, the disciples are warned that this hatred will come on simply because of the word that Christ spoke to them, that they believed, that they were called out of the world, that Christ as God, our

Savior, elected those who would be in him and pulled them out of the world as it were. And said, because I have taken you out, therefore they would hate you.

And then the last couple of verses speak to us about the Holy Spirit and his coming and his part in our witness, where he gives witness to the same thing that we are to give witness, which is what?

Jesus Christ and redemption in him by faith. So why are these here?

Why this sudden shift, this seeming non -sequitur, this non -transition really from love one another as I have loved you, and the world will hate you?

Why does the certainty of persecution follow upon this command of mutual love?

Well, I think there's a couple of reasons for it. And the first is in close to the end of what

I read a moment ago in chapter 16, verse 2, where Jesus says, I've said these things to you. Why?

What's the purpose? To keep you from falling away. To give you confidence. You, the 12 or the 11 disciples there that last night, to give you confidence that nothing has happened that catches

God by surprise. Not that just that God knew it was coming or that he predicted it because he's really, really smart.

But it's all in God's hand, his sovereign predestining hand. And so Jesus is able as God, the son to tell them to tell us what was to come to keep you from falling away.

So when these things happen, you don't look and say, well, this is pretty rotten. I need to change my circumstance.

I need to do something here or there to stop this persecution or these bad providences from coming upon me.

No. No. Don't fall away that way.

Because Jesus says, I've told you beforehand all we need to know. So that's one reason.

Confidence that it is in God's hand. And the other reason is implicit. There must be this clear difference between the world's behavior and Jesus's disciples behavior.

Whoever believes in Jesus is bound together with other believers. And our Lord expects our behavior to be a paradigm shift difference from the world's.

Here's you. Love one another as Christ has loved you.

Here's the world. Hate those who love Jesus.

Our Lord expects our behavior to be so different. It's like what he told the disciples who asked for a position elevated above the others.

Remember when James and John asked if they could be at Jesus's right and left hands when he goes to his kingdom?

And Jesus said what to them? You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and their great ones exercise authority over them.

It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant.

I can stop there for a moment. I can just ask you for a brief moment. Think of how different what

Jesus is saying there in Matthew. How different it already is from the worldly ways of self -promotion, of self -esteem, of taking pride in yourself.

Things that lead to this unbiblical notion of for example, I need to forgive myself before I can forgive others.

You don't forgive yourself. God forgives your sin by faith in Christ. You forgive others in obedience to Christ who saved you.

And whoever would be first among you must be your slave. Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

As this kind of idea that gives us this transition from the first 17 verses of John 15 which are all about the love that God has for the

Son and the Son has for his people and so we have for each other and then the world's hatred. The believers mutual love must endure in the face of the world's determined hatred.

Our mutual love must be stronger than the hatred that the world will bring upon us.

Back in this day this hatred was loss of property, loss of jobs, loss of life.

As history develops after biblical times then the persecutions are things that we know very very well.

And if you haven't read it I would recommend to you John Fox's book of martyrs where he details in great detail the tortures and the persecutions that came upon Christians who would not repudiate their faith in Christ.

Our mutual love together in the face of this hatred whether it's a snickering in the office toward you at the water cooler or out and out violence against you your family your property whatever that hatred is it must in we must endure in the face of it.

And that by the love God has for Christ, Christ for us and we for each other.

If the world hates you know that it's hated me before it hated you. And I thought about that and think well when did the world determine to hate

God? When did the world determine to hate God? Genesis 3 is the answer really.

When sins attraction proved irresistible is when the world hated God. When sins attraction proved to be too much

I can't resist this. And so if I'm going to take this I need to love this and that is against God therefore

God goes on the other side of the equation. When Adam indulged with his wife he set the entire race on a course of self -gratification.

And then what happened? Cain killed Abel. Why did Cain kill Abel? Because God had regard for Abel's offering but not for Cain's.

And it's incorrect to read into that record that Abel's was a better sacrifice because it came from the flock and so it prefigured

Christ. We're not told in Genesis why the one was preferred. We are told in Hebrews.

Why? It satisfies all our curiosity thereby faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain through which he was commended as righteous.

God commending him by accepting his gifts and through his faith and there's the answer.

Faith. Through his faith though he died he still speaks. And of course

Hebrews 11 6 without faith it is impossible to please God. So Cain who we could call the serpent seed he hated

Abel the woman seed. He hated his brother's sacrifice. Whatever it was he hated his brother's sacrifice because he hated his brother's intimacy with God.

He hated what God loves and so with the world. Hating what

God loves. Primarily Jesus Christ himself the person the second person the

Trinity. By derivation. Hating his people.

And by derivation of that hating what we stand for and some of the stances that we take because the scriptures demanded of us.

I think the scriptures are right and we know that. Not just by faith but primarily by faith but also by experience.

We know that the scripture is right. And they go against the course of what is outside these walls. And therefore the world hating the scripture.

The people of the book. The Christ who is the word that gave us the book and the

God that is this book. We can trace this throughout history.

All the kings of Israel were idol loving worship God haters. The more they delved into what

God hates the more they indulge what they loved. And pity the prophets who were sent to warn them.

The prophets who indicted them for loving what God hates and vice versa. They were mocked.

They were beaten. They were scourged. In Hebrews we're told they were even sawn in two. Tradition holds that that was

Isaiah. Who was while he was alive cut in half with a saw. Because of what he spoke for God.

And how much the hearers hated what they were hearing. And the God who sent him so that they would hear that.

Jeremiah chapter 18 verse 18. They said come let us make plots against Jeremiah.

For the law shall not perish from the priest. Nor counsel from the wise nor the word from the prophet. Come let us strike him with the tongue.

And let us not pay attention to any of his words. Jeremiah 26 8.

And when Jeremiah had finished speaking all that the Lord had commanded him to speak to all the people. Then the priests and the prophets.

And of course we could put parenthetically the false priests. The false prophets. And all the people laid hold of him saying you shall die.

Or Amos chapter 7 verses 12 and 13. And Amaziah said to Amos. Go seer.

Go flee away to the land of Judah. And eat the bread there. And prophesy there. But never prophesy again at Bethel.

For it is the king's sanctuary. And it is a temple of the kingdom. And then of course

Jesus puts it the most clearly doesn't he? John chapter 3 verse 19.

And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world. Meaning himself. And people loved the darkness rather than light.

Because their deeds were evil. So when Jesus says the world hated me.

He meant the nation to whom he first presented himself. That's the primary thing that was in focus there.

The works he did before their very eyes were the evidence. And he names the world as his adversary.

You see the world just cannot abide the convicting word. It always interests me that on such issues as same sex marriage.

Or abortion. Even while clearly hating our biblical stance. And loving perversion.

And loving murder. There is a need to answer God's word. Have you ever noticed that?

That even when they say it doesn't make any sense. We don't have to follow that. That has no authority over me.

We hate that word. Take it away. And yet how much effort is expended by them to answer what

God's word says. They don't just shrug it off.

They weave together these long and intricate arguments against it. And maybe it's the sheer vicuity of their answer that inflames their animosity.

It could be even as they're speaking. And saying no it's just a fetus.

And the woman has the right. The husband has the right. The father has the right to get rid of the thing.

Even while they're saying that. They know it's not true. And the only way to uphold it is to hate its opposite.

Which is God's word. Which says you shall not commit murder. Well whether the hatred is manifested in action.

Such as Jesus's cross. Or the disciples martyrdoms. Or loss of job and friends.

Or if it is more passive. The quiet sneers. The condescending silence. The lack of an invitation.

It's the convicting power of a life lived before God that causes the hatred. It always has.

It always will. The power of course is not in us. But in the word which we represent.

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. You don't belong.

We don't belong. It's Peter who calls us pilgrims and sojourners.

Strangers. Was it Robert Heinlein who wrote that book? Strangers on a

Strange Planet? We feel that way sometimes. And we read God's word.

And we see what it says. And we see the moral and ethical basis from which all mankind should really proceed.

And we see how different it is. And we sort of scratch our heads. Say, why can't they see this?

Well we know why ultimately. Because God has not opened their eyes. Because the veil remains. Because they're still darkened.

They're still under the influence of the spirit of this age. We know the reason.

But don't you sometimes still scratch your head? And think, why doesn't this make sense? This is so clear.

Remember the word they said to you. A servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

If they have kept my word, they will keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name.

Because they do not know him who sent me. I find some comfort in this.

To know ultimately it's not me. But the Christ I represent. No matter how poorly sometimes

I represent him. It's ultimately that simple profession. I am a

Christ one. I am a Christian. I believe in the eternal son of God who died for my sins.

Sometimes we can't say much more than that. And I believe most of the time that's enough.

But what do we learn here also? We learn that the dividing line is Christ Jesus.

He says I came to bring the sword. A sword that divides. Sort of the way it's spoken of in Hebrew.

Where the word of God is an active and a living God. And then it's likened to a sword that divides.

Christ is like they say I came and bring a sword. Christ is that division. It's not our wealth.

It's not our education. It's not our nation or our race. None of that that ultimately divides people.

Wars have been fought over those things. But the real conflict is between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world.

Jesus says we will be persecuted. He says you will be hated for his namesake. There is a way to avoid this.

And it's really quite simple. Just don't follow the way of our master. Just don't follow in his footsteps.

Instead follow worldly ways if only on the outside. Give them no difference and they'll have nothing to hate.

The world out there pretends to celebrate diversity. But ultimately it is only the diversity that is the issue du jour.

The issue of the day. The hot item for now. I may be the oldest one in this room right now.

And I can't tell you if I sat down for an hour I could probably think of about every five years. How the issues that are important, the things that have got everybody all hot and bothered have changed about that often.

What's the issue du jour? Sexual diversity has overtaken race is today's firebrand.

Religious diversity is okay. So long as your religion doesn't run afoul of today's celebrated cause as Christianity does.

Just say though that the scripture you follow as your rule of faith and life deny marriage outside of Adam and Eve's one man, one woman model with man and woman biologically defined.

Or that abortion is murder. And see how much tolerance there really is out there.

For us within these four walls when we bite and devour each other,

Galatians 5 .15. When we think of a brother or sister as a fool, Matthew 5 .22

saying we're murdering them in our hearts. When we push others out of the way, 1 Corinthians 11 .17

-22. When we insist on prominence like diatrophies in 3 John 9.

What are we doing? We're showing a worldly hatred unseemly in God's people.

I mean ought not a person in Christ expect love especially from another in Christ?

Of course they should. Jesus commands it. We just finished that last Sunday. The Holy Spirit enlivens it in us.

To do otherwise is to dish out inside the church what we expect from the world outside the church.

Now before they do anything on account of Jesus's name they need to see his name held up.

They need to see a people living according to Christ's will. And let that be the flashpoint for us.

Let Christ's honor be that on which that be the sword on which we fall.

And nothing less. Let the difference be stark between out there and in here.

And in here is love. And if the stranger walks in from the Old Testament all the way forward to the new there's to be a love for the stranger.

There's to be hospitality. There's to be an open arm greeting. Let that be the difference that causes the irrational response.

Jesus goes on, 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. 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. Responsibility for sin comes after knowledge of right and wrong.

This is not speaking here of the testimony of nature from Psalm 19. Nor is it the conscience that all men have after having been made in God's image.

Jesus is speaking here of direct and specific revelation. He speaks about what he, the living word of God himself said and did in their very presence.

It's much what he said again going back to Matthew's gospel. Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you,

Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in tire and side they would have repented long ago and sat clothed in ashes.

But I tell you it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for tire and side on them for you. And you,

Capernaum, excuse me, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades.

For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom it would have remained to this day.

Maybe that's why they tried so hard to silence Jeremiah or Amos. They knew they'd be held guilty for what they heard.

But excuses end when the word is heard. How much more are excuses weakened for those who not only heard the word of God from the word of God but saw with their own eyes, blind eyes given sight, lame legs made whole, leprosy vanquished, demon scent shrieking away, who saw with their own eyes the dead raised to life.

Think of the accountability. Think of the hand over the mouth, eyes to the ground, answer to God.

Of a person who saw Jesus himself, heard his words from his own lips, saw these miracles.

As he told John when John sent the disciples to inquire of Jesus, are you the one who is to come?

Or should we wait for another? And Jesus says to the disciples, go and tell John what you've seen and heard.

The lepers are healed. Sins are forgiven. Now I'm paraphrasing. The dead are raised to life.

Tell John what you have seen with your own eyes. The responsibility of having heard, having seen is tremendous.

And so Jesus says, verse 23, whoever hates me hates my father also. Hates him who sent me, as he says in another place.

But the word that is written in the law must be fulfilled. They hated me without a cause. We can think about this for just a moment.

Could you love someone who hated your child? What about a parent?

And this is reminiscent of David sending an emissary to Ammon the prince whose father died. He sends his emissaries to give condolences to him.

And the Ammonites, convincing Ammon the prince that they came as spies, they treated them disgracefully.

They cut off their beards, half their beard, and they sent them away with the rear of their tunics cut away so their buttocks were exposed as they went back.

And King David responded, how? He responded as though they had done that to him personally, which really they had.

And in the same way, however you take the son, however you take Jesus, so also you do the father and vice versa.

You can't have one view of one of them and claim a different view towards the other. Well, you can actually have two divergent views, one for the father, another for the son, but God says, and this is what matters, as you show reverence to the one, so it is to me.

Disrespect my only begotten son, and so you have me. So it's too much for me to say that you can't have two different views of the father and the son.

You can. People can practically do that, but God won't allow it.

In the end, what you think of the son is what you think of the father and vice versa.

At least that's what God will say. Well, the world's hatred is and has been a constant.

It has long and deep roots all the way back to Genesis 3 and all through redemptive history in the scriptures and our own experiential history since then.

It's the natural man's response to God's righteousness and to God's children who are clothed in that righteousness.

So what do we do? Well, better to ask, what has God done? Not so much what do we do, but what has

God done? Verse 26, the solution is God's immediate help by the

Helper. And most of your Bible's Helper is capital H. It's a title.

It's a title for the Holy Spirit of God. 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, and you will also bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning.

He doesn't say witnessing is no longer required. Rather, the Holy Spirit will go ahead of us just as Jesus did.

He will pave the way. Did he not bear witness? I'm speaking of the Holy Spirit.

Did he not bear witness when tongues were given the apostles at Pentecost? When Peter answered the

Sanhedrin in Acts chapter three, it says he was full of the Holy Spirit. And was it not the

Holy Spirit who went ahead of Philip preparing the Ethiopian to hear the gospel? I think this is the sort of thing

Jesus has in mind when he says that the Spirit will bear witness and then we will bear witness after him.

The Spirit today is the same as he was then. He is the ultimate witness about Jesus because only he can turn our words or our witness of any sort into life -giving faith as he did for each of us today who are here and believe in Jesus Christ.

And finally for this afternoon, the Lord's purpose, which is the first four verses of chapter 16.

I've said all these things to you to keep you from falling away, and 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.

And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. But I've said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you.

So in just that short section, I just read verses one and four, the beginning and the end are about us.

And then in the middle, two and three are about them. Excuse me.

When the world bears its fangs and comes after us, remember that Jesus knows.

Not just that he's aware because he is God, he knows everything. He knows our trials. He cares about them.

He knows about them. He sees them. And individually, he cares about them.

When Stephen was feeling the last of the stones that were taking his life, just before he died, what do we read?

But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

Up from the throne, engaged, concerned with what was going on with Stephen and what he was going through.

Jesus told Paul in Corinth, Acts chapter 18, do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent for I am with you and no one will attack you to harm you.

For I have many in this city who are my people. And it's Jesus in Revelation chapter two and three, those seven letters to the seven churches who knows our works, who commends the works, who corrects the path because there he is standing amongst the seven candles, aware, omniscient, loving, concerned, telling us that he knows what we're going through as a church, as individuals, that he knows and he cares and he may still have something against you or me or all of us.

And yet, there is Jesus up off his throne, standing and watching and caring and concerned, not just watching the goings -ons, but with us by his spirit, ruling us by his word, upholding us right now by his power.

Without all this, all we have is a prediction that came true.

But Jesus is not a predictor. Any smart man or woman can predict things.

He is the sovereign Lord to whom one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that he is

Lord. So we know that whether it is manifested in words or actions, in violence or in passive manner, that if we really truly stand for Christ, that we stand for one whom the world hates, and by extension, us.

And we don't go seeking hatred. As much as it lies within you, live at peace with everyone, including our unbelieving neighbors and coworkers.

Yet when it comes upon us, know that God is with us. Know that Jesus Christ said that,

I told you this beforehand. Why? To keep us from falling away. So we know that it's not just bad luck.

Maybe we never say anything like that. It's not just a cruel happenstance. No. It's under the sovereign, exact, intimate, detailed, sovereign, providential care and concern of God the

Son. Amen. Let us continue in song with number 86.