We are continuing our series in the Gospel of John, and I invite you to turn with me in your Bible to John 15, beginning at verse 18. And if you want to follow along in the Pew Bible, you can join me in turning to page 902 of the Pew Bible, page 902. We will be reading John 15, verse 18, to verse 4 of chapter 16. John 15, beginning at verse 18, hear now God's holy word. If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you. 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. 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 their 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 have 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 have said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you." And thus far, the reading of God's holy word. False or unrealistic expectations almost always leads to disappointment and sometimes to hardship. Have you ever been excited to see a movie? You saw the trailer and it looked really good. Or maybe you read the book and since the book was fantastic, you think the movie's going to be great too. Or maybe all your friends saw the movie, and they just raved about it. And they told you over and over again, you've got to go and see this movie. But whatever the reason, your expectations are high. And then you go and see it. And it isn't nearly as good as you thought it would be. And so your movie-going experience ends in bitter disappointment. Or how about a planned vacation? You book the rental online after you saw the beautiful pictures, and you read all the positive reviews. So you're excited. This is going to be the best vacation ever. But then you get there, and you find that the apartment is old and dirty, the beach way too crowded, the water cold, the kids complaining all the time. And then you go to the local amusement park, and you stand for two hours in the hot blistering sun for a 30-second ride. Your high hopes for a great vacation ends in disappointment. Or take a more serious example. I once heard a story about a woman who believed that God would answer any good desire if she simply had enough faith. And one time she needed, or rather wanted, something to fall into place for her, and so she prayed and prayed with all the faith that she could muster. And she believed she had great faith, But God didn't give her what she had asked for. And she ended up having a spiritual crisis because her expectations were not met. She was left wondering, where was God? Why didn't he live up to his end of the bargain, as it were? Does God care? Does God even exist? False expectations are also a problem when it comes to marriage. You might think that the marriage will always be like the honeymoon or that my spouse will always meet my needs and satisfy me. But then when reality hits, when our spouse lets us down, we're not only disappointed, we are hurt. And eventually we might want to get out of the marriage because we are so unhappy. I recently watched a fine sermon by Tim Keller on YouTube, and the sermon was on Psalm 88, which is one of the darkest passages in all of the Bible. And the sermon was on how to deal with dark times. And in the sermon, he said that expectations are a big part of how we handle suffering. And that is because false expectations add to our suffering. The suffering is hard enough, but when we add to what our disillusionment, our disappointment, and our confusion, we make it all the much worse. We think, how can this be happening to me? I'm a Christian. This shouldn't be happening to me. What is going on here? I can't believe this is happening to me. Well, Jesus doesn't want us to be plagued with false expectations about what it means to follow him and to be his disciple. He doesn't want us to think that if we become a Christian and follow him, then everything's going to turn out rosy for us. Jesus knows that false expectations can be deadly. He knows that they can lead to apostasy. to falling away. And so he tells us in advance what we can expect if we follow him. He also tells us the who and the why, and he does all of this to encourage us and to help us to persevere in the faith, to endure to the end, because it is he who endures to the end that will be saved. So then what can we expect? Well, we can expect to be hated and persecuted for the simple fact of being a Christian. Jesus says that the world will hate you in verse 19, and more than that, they might persecute you and possibly kill you. In chapter 16, verse 2, Jesus says to his disciples that they will put you out of the synagogues and that even some of them will be killed. Now, being put out of the synagogue was already a problem at this time. We learned in chapter 9 that the Jewish leaders had decided to put people out of the synagogues who confessed that Jesus is the Christ. They excommunicated the man born blind, and many of the leaders who did believe in Jesus kept that to themselves because they feared that they, too, would be thrown out of the synagogue. And things weren't going to change, apparently, after Jesus left his disciples, and that they too would be shunned and ostracized for following Jesus and preaching the gospel. But things would only get worse from there for them, because Luke tells us in the book of Acts that Jesus was, not Jesus, but rather Stephen, was stoned to death for confessing Christ. Saul, before he became Paul, exerted a lot of energy. He was very zealous in persecuting Christians. And James, John's own brother and fellow disciple, was killed by the sword. And Paul himself suffered much for the cause of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 11, he gives an account of some of the trials he had to endure as he preached the gospel, which included beatings and whippings and stonings and shipwrecks. And tradition tells us that he, too, like James, was executed by the sword. That is, that he was beheaded. And tradition also tells us that the other disciples, except John, were killed. According to tradition, Matthew was slain with the sword in a city in Ethiopia, and Peter was crucified upside down. Now, of course, this is not to say that every Christian in the history of the Christian church will suffer for Christ in these ways, or that every Christian will be excommunicated and killed. No, not at all. The type and intensity of hatred and persecution will wax and wane. And the first 300 years of the church was a time of frequent, and at times intense, persecution. But it didn't stay like that. Things got much better. Persecution won't be constant for everyone, everywhere and at all times. There are many factors that will determine what life will be like for you as a disciple of Christ. And we here in America have it pretty well. We enjoy a lot of religious freedom. We aren't threatened with church closings or imprisonment or death for being a Christian or for attending a Christian worship service. But that is not the case for other Christians around the world. We have recently heard about the raids, the detainments, the surveillance, the imprisonments of our fellow Christians in Chengdu, China. Our own missionary, Mike McCabe, and his family felt that they had to leave China because of the crackdown going on there in Chengdu. And of course, over the years, and we continue to hear horror stories from around the world, shootings, beheadings, drownings, beatings, burnings, bomb attacks, imprisonments, and so on. And although we may not suffer in the way in which our brothers and sisters around the world suffer, we still might experience unpleasantness to one degree or another in this country because we are a Christian. We might lose a job or job opportunity. We might be mocked, ridiculed, teased, ignored. We might be rejected in one form or another. But the point is simply this, that we should expect some kind of opposition for being a Christian. And so if it does happen to you, If you do suffer in some way simply for being a Christian, that shouldn't surprise you. It is par for the course. Peter wrote this. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed. because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Or as Paul said, indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. At one point in that great movie, The Princess Bride, Wesley says this, life is pain, Highness, Anyone who says differently is selling something. Here we learn from Jesus that being a Christian doesn't take away the pain in this life. Christ doesn't promise you a trouble-free life. There will be no more pain, no more trouble for Christians in the life to come, but not in this life. Your best life is not now, but later. And anyone who tells you differently is selling something. Expect trouble as a Christian. So when it happens, you're not surprised by it. Well, who will hate and persecute us? Well, Jesus says that the world will hate and persecute us. And the world here doesn't refer to the physical world or the planet. It doesn't refer to one particular nation or religion or group of people. It simply refers to the sphere of evil in the world, to those who are in opposition to the one true God and his ways. You'll notice in verse 19 that Jesus makes a contrast between the world and his disciples who have been chosen out of the world. There are essentially, as the Bible says, two types of people in this world. Those who are of the world and those who have been chosen out of the world. Those who are in the kingdom of darkness and those who are in the kingdom of God's dear son. Those who are in Adam and those who are in Christ. Now in the immediate context here, the world stands, of course, for the Jewish leaders who are against God and against his son, our Lord Jesus. They were the ones who excommunicated the man born blind. They are the ones who will work to put Jesus to death. And they will be the ones who will hate the disciples and persecute them. And this, of course, reminds us that sometimes the world may be in the church. Sometimes hatred and persecution comes from within. The Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus were part of the Old Testament church. They're part of Israel, God's covenant people. Yet they were the ones who hated and persecuted Jesus. Yahweh come in the flesh. They're the ones who hated Jesus' disciples. And they're the ones to whom Jesus refers to as the world. The same thing, of course, happened before Jesus came. Godly men, including prophets and priests, were hated and killed by the leaders of Israel. And it happens in the church. Sometimes the shots come from behind, as it were. Leaders in the church have hated and killed Christians. John Huss is just one example that we could mention. He was one of the early reformers. He lived before Calvin and Luther. And he was invited to defend himself at a church meeting called the Council of Constance. And he was promised even safe conduct by the king or emperor. But when he arrived there for the meeting, the church leaders arrested Hus, and they justified their actions to the king by saying that he was not bound by promises to a heretic. Then they proceeded to condemn him and burnt him at the stake. The world, those who are against God and Jesus and the gospel, will hate and persecute Christians. But why, is a question we might ask. Why would they do that? Why did the Jewish leaders kill Jesus? I mean, He went about teaching and healing and helping people. He lived a life of love. Yet they hated Him, even to the point of putting Him to death. Why would they do that? The same with the disciples. They too went about teaching and helping and healing people. Why would they be put to death? I mean, why is the Chinese government going after Christians in Chengdu, China? What is their crime? You know, when we ask the why question, we do have to realize that there are going to be multiple answers to it. And we could, one way to organize those answers is to say that there are primary or foundational reasons, and there are more secondary or immediate reasons. So for example, if we ask the why question as to why John Smith bought the Ford Mustang, the secondary reason might be that he was given money to buy the car. But a more foundational primary reason would be that that was his favorite car. He's always loved that particular car, and that's why he bought that car. Well, there are many secondary reasons why Christians are persecuted. It might be because they converted from another religion. It might be because they refuse to obey sinful laws. It might be because Christians are exerting more influence than the leaders would like to see. Maybe the leaders are losing their grip and they feel that they need to punish Christians or something like that. There can be many secondary reasons. But here in our text, Jesus provides us some foundational primary reasons why the world will hate and persecute Christians. And there are at least three related reasons. And the first one is this, is that we do not belong to the world. Verse 19, if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you're not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. I'm going to use another movie illustration. I guess it's movie day today. But in the movie, the force awakens. one of the newer Star Wars movies. There are, like the original, two sides, the First Order and the New Republic, which is supported by the Resistance. Well, in this movie, there is a First Order stormtrooper named Finn. And near the beginning, he refuses to follow orders to kill innocent people. And he ends up joining the other side, the New Republic, and he helps the Resistance to fight the First Order. So here you have a man who was once of the first order, but now he's taken out of the first order and he's placed into the new republic, the resistance. And that of course makes him a marked man from the first order perspective. He's now hated by them because he no longer belongs to them. He belongs to some other group or side or people. Well, Christians have been taken out of the world. They've been chosen out of it. And now they are part of the kingdom of God. They now serve a different Lord and have different beliefs and practices and values and ways of thinking. They march to the beat of a different drum. And so they stand out. They are no longer like the world. And for that very reason, they are hated by it. Within the very first month of his conversion in college, R.C. Sproul goes back and sees his friends. And all through high school, Sproul says that he was the unofficial leader of the pack. And he was excited to go back and see his friends and tell them the greatest thing that's ever happened to him. They became a Christian, that Christ is the savior and the cause of his highest happiness. He's on fire. He wants to tell his friends what happened to him. And he's so excited that he thinks they're going to be excited for him too, and maybe even join him in following Christ. But that's not what happened. Instead, as he says, they were unanimous in their rejection of everything I said, and not only did they reject what I said, they manifestly rejected me. I was hurt because they were my friends, and I loved them, and I wanted them to meet my new friend, Jesus. And so we can expect to be rejected, In one form or another, because we are now different. We are no longer part of the world. We don't think or act like them in their rebellion against God. But a second related reason is that we are not greater than our master Jesus. Jesus reminds his disciples of the saying that a servant is not greater than his master, and he applies it to the matter of persecution. If they hated Jesus, then they're going to hate you. But on the other hand, if they accepted Jesus, they will accept you too. Jesus is not of the world, and they hated him. And whoever professes Christ and stands with him can expect the same kind of treatment. The servant is not greater than his master. But a third related reason is ignorance. It's ignorance. The world does not know Jesus or the father who sent him. The world doesn't, at one level, know God. In verse 21, Jesus says that they will do these things to you on account of being a Christian because they do not know the one who sent Jesus. In chapter 16, verse three, Jesus says the same point. They will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. As we've seen throughout this gospel, Jesus is God incarnate. Jesus is the one who created the universe, the one who created us, the one who sustains us in the world we live in, the one who reveals himself in the things that he has made, the one whose image in whom we are made. And he has come to us as a human being. He lived among us. He taught the truth. He spoke the very words of God because he is God. He performed miracles and signs and did works that nobody else had ever done. which all signified and confirmed that he is the divine savior who came to deliver us from our sins. Jesus did all this right in front of the Jewish leaders, right in front of their eyes. They heard and saw these things, and yet they refused to see the truth. They explained it away. They said, well, Jesus must be of the devil. He's a Sabbath breaker. And that is why Jesus says in verses 22 and 24 that they are guilty and without excuse. They are guilty without excuse for hating and persecuting the Lord of glory. They hated him without a cause, as the scripture said they would. They had absolutely no good reason to go after Jesus. Every reason to believe and support him, or at the very least, to leave him alone. But they didn't. They hated him and went after him. And that is why their ignorance is culpable. Jesus came to his own, but his own people did not receive him. They should have known and recognized Jesus. Indeed, they claimed to know God and follow the one true God. They had a zeal for God, as Paul says in Romans. but their zeal was not according to knowledge. They didn't know or love or follow God. And that becomes crystal clear by the rejection of Jesus. Jesus says, verse 23, that whoever hates him hates the father also. You can't claim to know and love God and not love and follow Jesus. The two go hand in hand. And here we see that zeal without knowledge is a very dangerous thing. And that was the case with the Jewish leaders who persecuted the first disciples. Jesus says that they will think that they are worshiping God. They will think that they are doing God a favor by killing you. They don't know God. They don't love God. Even though they think they do. In fact, that's what Paul thought before he was converted. That's why he was so zealous to go after Christians. Because he thought he was doing God a service by putting these people in prison. But they do these evil things because they really don't know the Father or the One whom the Father has sent. And their hatred and wicked deeds prove it. Now I imagine as Jesus told these things to his disciples, they weren't exactly thrilled and happy to hear about what is going to happen to them, that they are going to be put out of the synagogues and possibly killed by people who think that they are doing God a service. But we do have to understand that Jesus was not telling them these things to frighten them or to upset them. He was warning them and preparing them for what will happen so that when it does happen, they won't become disillusioned, confused, disappointed, and then give up. As the saying goes, to be forewarned is to be forearmed. That's why Jesus says, in verse one of chapter 16, I have said these things to you to keep you from falling away. And it's the same for us, isn't it? We don't want to have false expectations of what it means to be a Christian, of what is required of being a Christian, and what it might cost us to be a Christian. If we think that becoming a Christian will mean that the rest of our life is going to be great, that we'll be healthy, wealthy, and wise to the end of our days, and we will live a very, very long life, if that's what we think, and then it doesn't happen, what will happen to us? Our false expectations will most likely create a spiritual crisis in our mind and heart. We will wonder what is true, what is not, what is going on? Where is God? So false expectations concerning the requirements and the reality of being a Christian can be a spiritual killer. Jesus says in chapter 16, verse 33, that in this world, you will have tribulation. And tribulation might involve, it might involve being hated and persecuted for the simple fact that you are a Christian. So don't be surprised if it happens to you. And if it does happen, trust in the Lord and endure to the end. Remember, he will never leave you nor forsake you. Nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, because Jesus has overcome the world. Let us pray. Our Father and our God, we do thank you for your word, which speaks to us and reminds us, O Lord, at sometimes of the high cost of of being a Christian and of following you. We do pray, O Lord, that if we should be hated or persecuted because of your name, that you would give us the strength to handle it, to persevere through it, and that we would cling to Christ because we know that in him there is life and there's no one else that we can turn to. O Lord, we ask, bless us, change us. that we might follow you all the days of our life, no matter what happens in this life. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.