Spiritually witnessing to a world that hates Jesus

Life in the Lord’s Vineyard – 4 Sermons

Part 4: “The Vineyard of the Lord in the World”

(John 15:18-27, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 22, 2009)

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.

What does Christ teach us about the source of true witnessing?

A: “The Spirit of truth… will bear witness about me.” (John 15:26)

In the world but not of the world (18-19)

The disciples of Jesus Christ, Peter, James, John and the rest, were men like other men of their time and place. They were men of their world. There is no indication that they were the best of men in any sense, that they were the smartest, holiest, most resourceful, or in any other way particularly different from the others they grew up with in Galilee. The key difference between them and their friends and relatives who were not with them hearing Jesus talk to them about how He was the vine and they were the branches was only this: They were chosen by Him to be the apostles of the New Testament church. They would be the men who, after three years of witnessing the words and actions of Jesus of Nazareth, would bear witness to the fact that Jesus was the Messiah.

Until the day that they died one by one, apparently at the hands of their enemies, they would live in the world. But there would be something different about them. They would have a heavenly Spirit in them, and that would make them people who, while they were still in the world, were not really of the world. Because the Lord chose them out of the world, and made them disciples, giving them this heavenly Spirit, they would be united to Him even after He was gone. There would be this mysterious union that they would have with Christ, and they would speak for Him, as normal people who were called out of the world in order to speak for God in the midst of the world. Through their witness, other people would hear, and some of them would be chosen out of the world, and they would believe and follow Jesus Christ, and they too would be given this same heavenly Spirit; they too would be united to Jesus Christ and have communion with Him.

This would not be an easy thing for the apostles, because of this one fact: Not everyone who hears the message of Christ from His apostles and from His church will embrace that message of grace as good news. Many will actually hate the messengers. This is what Jesus is preparing them for as He is about to face the vicious hatred of those who were against Him in His suffering and death. These others who would not receive and abide in the Word of God, would be those who were not only in the world, but also of the world. They would hate the disciples, and Jesus says here of the world, “It has hated me before it hated you.” The only way to make the world like you is to decide to act like you are of the world. This is what many people try to do, but if you are in Christ, this cannot really work, because of our union with the Lord. We have His team colors on, even when we try to cover them with the world’s sweatshirt.

Serving a Master who was hated without a cause (20-25)

This kind of talk about the world vs. Jesus sounds very extreme to us, and we are not sure that we like it. We also know that there are many people who proudly wore the colors of Yahweh as a bold spiritual fashion statement, claiming that they were more “of God” than God, and certainly more of God than the prostitutes and the tax-collectors, yet they were the ones that were actually ready to kill Jesus. To make this even more complicated, some of those who were Jesus-haters would very soon become Jesus-lovers after the preaching of Christ, the cross, and the resurrection by Peter and the others at Pentecost. All of this means that it is not always easy to see who is actually on what side. We have known many religious people in our own day who would not want to have anything to do even with a person who voted for a different presidential candidate than they did, let alone being willing to see the grace of God in the life of a prostitute or a thief. In fact, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:11, “And such were some of you.” The church is made up of former thieves, and of former Pharisees. While it feels extreme to talk about people hating the church because they hate Jesus, we are assured by the Lord that this is what the reality is, and it will be out of this world of openly immoral law-breakers and persecuting God-haters who think that they are God’s best friends that men like the Apostle Paul and Simon the Magician will come.

If we are clear about Christ, the cross, and the resurrection, we cannot expect that everyone will love us, Him, or His message. We also cannot imagine that those who seem to reject us, Him, and His message will be neutral. Jesus is telling His disciples that they will be hated and persecuted without any just cause, because He was hated without a cause. It is a fact that out of that mass of those who hate us, Him, and His message, some will have an amazing change of heart. The way that change of heart will generally come will be through personal contact with others. It is in that exposure to the genuine community of the church, that people caught up in the middle of hating Jesus without a cause will begin to find that they love the One that they were sure that they hated, and they will hardly know what to do about that. It is within the community of the church that they will learn how to live for Him, and how to live with each other. They once did not love the Father or the Son. Some in the day of the Apostles had seen the undeniable miracles of Jesus, and they had heard the words of life that He spoke to them. They were without excuse. They were guilty of sin in their rejection of Jesus and the persecution of the church. But some of these, like Paul, would be changed, and would experience spiritual life, and spiritual growth.

The world is different than the people of faith in Christ. Here are just two examples of this difference. 1) The world has no place for confession of sin and the receiving of true forgiveness based on the work of Christ. We have come to love these things in the church. It is wonderful to confess our sins to one another. We read in James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” We love to hear this. We confess our sins to one another, and we pray for one another, because we are priests to one another. The healing we receive that way is wonderful to us. 2) The world has no real place for deeply receiving the Word of the Scriptures into our hearts as we read it over and over again. We have come to love hearing verses that we already have heard and messages that we already know. We love the fact that we start to recognize certain words and thoughts from the Bible. We are not tired of seeing Christ everywhere in the Bible, and adding new words of faith from the Bible into the storage chest of our souls.

Spiritual witnesses (26-27)

Naturally when we experience forgiveness and when we love a passage that has become familiar to us, we would like to think that others might be able to enjoy this same thing. When we hint of such things around others, we may find some receptivity to genuine spiritual life. Sometimes when I give an opening to someone who I expect to have no spiritual interest, I am surprised to find that they do have interest. They may be afraid that they don’t know the right words to say, but if they are able to sense that I am not there to judge them, they may admit that they believe something, though they may not know exactly what it is that they believe. This kind of spiritual interaction between family members, friends, and neighbors has been going on for a long time. It is part of the personal interaction of the church in a world that actually hates Christ and His church, as the Father begins the sometimes lengthy process of drawing people out of that world to Himself. This kind of new creation and the spiritual growth that can follow at an unpredictable pace can only truly happen by the Holy Spirit, but He who is in us, uses us.

The Spirit of God who is within us somehow comes alongside us in our willingness to have some measured spiritual interaction with another person. The work that must be done is an internal work of the soul, and must be done by the Holy Spirit. Yet the spirits of the apostles to be, in their day, would be made willing to bear witness. We remember what God has done in the past, and we bear witness. We are aware to some degree of some things that God appears to be doing now, and we bear witness. We believe the promises of what God will do in the future, and we bear witness. This is what the apostles did; this is what the first century church did; this is what we are doing in our lives; and this witness-bearing is what the Holy Spirit uses to do His own essential work of witness-bearing.

Do not think that the way to bear witness is through fitting perfectly into the worldliness the world, or through being judgmental along with the Pharisaic self-congratulating church. Neither of these false ways of bearing witness does any spiritual good. The first sounds like it might work because we think that people will relate to us on a natural level and that somehow through our being worldlier than they expected they will be able to develop a spiritual interest. The second sounds good because we think that people will see our own obedience and they will be impressed with our law-keeping, be ashamed of their own sins, and will want to be like us. Both methods ignore the depth of the world’s natural hatred for the Lord. That hate is so deep, though hidden, that only the work of the Holy Spirit can make the change necessary to bring life and growth to those we love. The best thing that we can do is to be open to the work of this same Spirit in making us true spiritual witnesses to others. Confess your sins to one another and speak words of forgiveness to each other. Receive the Word of God over and over again in your hearts. Be open to spiritual interactions that are beyond you, where the good that may be accomplished in your presence must come from the Holy Spirit working in the lives of others, who like us, were by nature, children of wrath.

1. What is the difference between being in the world and being of the world?

2. What encouragement comes to us from considering the life of our Lord in the midst of the world?

3. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the witness-bearing of the apostles?

4. How are we to bear witness about Jesus Christ?