BIG IDEA:
REMEMBERING THE ENCOURAGING PROPHETIC WORDS OF CHRIST MAKES PERSECUTION MORE PALATABLE
I. (:18-21) PERSECUTION (HATRED) SHOULD BE NO SURPRISE FROM A PREDICTABLE WORLD
A. (:18) Don’t Imagine Your Persecution to be Unique —
Persecution Follows a Predictable Pattern – We are in good company!
Disciples follow in the footsteps of the Master (no “Woe is me” mentality)
“If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.”
B. (:19) Don’t Try to Avoid Persecution by Conformity to the World —
Election and Sanctification Qualify Disciples for Persecution –
Disciples have been chosen to be “unworldly” – Don’t lose our saltiness!
“If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”
Stedman: You are different, and the world does not like anything different. The one unrelenting pressure of society around us is to conform, to shape up. (1 Pet. 4:3-4)
Scott Grant: We often expend much effort trying to get the world to love us, or at least not to hate us. The effort is not only wasted, it’s misguided. It’s wasted because the world will never really love us. In order for it to love us, we have to act like people we are not. We’d have to be like the world’s “own.” If the world loves in response to an act, it’s not loving what’s really there. It’s misguided because in order to be like the world, we have to adopt its ways, which are destructive.
C. (:20) Don’t Think You Are Exempt from Persecution —
Disciples Will Receive the Same Response as the Master
1. Prophetic Reminder
“Remember the word that I said to you”
2. Universal Principle
“A slave is not greater than his master”
3. Parallel Response
a. Persecution
“If they persecuted Me, the will also persecute you”
b. Discipleship
“if they kept My word, they will keep yours also”
D. (:21) Don’t Take it Personally –
Persecution is not your fault!
1. Persecution is Ultimately Directed Against Christ
“But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake”
2. Persecution Stems From an Ignorance of God
“because they do not know the One who sent Me”
II. (:22-27) PERSECUTION (HATRED) OF CHRIST RENDERS THE JEWS GUILTY AND WITHOUT EXCUSE (IN LIGHT OF SUCH ABUNDANT REVELATION)
A. (:22) Words of Christ Condemn Them
“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.”
B. (:23) Key Link Between God the Son and God the Father
“He who hates Me hates My Father also.”
C. (:24) Works of Christ Condemn Them
“If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.”
D. (:25) They are Without Excuse – Condemned by Their Own Prophetic Law
“But they have done this in order that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’”
Such hatred is inexcusable!
Scott Grant: The word written in their law comes from either Psalm 35:19 or Psalm 69:4, or perhaps both. In each case King David is writing of his enemies, who hate him “without a cause.” Jesus, as the eternal inheritor of the throne of David, understands these words as his own. In Psalm 35, David said of those who hated him: “But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting; and my prayer kept returning to my bosom. I went about as though it were my friend or brother; I bowed down mourning, as one who sorrows for a mother” (Psalm 35:13-14). Those who hated David not only had no cause to hate him; they had every cause to love him, for he treated them as friends.
E. (:26-27) Supporting Witnesses for Truth About Christ
1. (:26) Witness of the Holy Spirit
“When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness of Me.”
2. (:27) Witness of the Apostles
“and you will bear witness also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”
III. (16:1-6) BEING FOREWARNED IS FOREARMED –
ENCOURAGING WORDS SUSTAIN FAITH THROUGH TRYING TIMES OF SEPARATION AND PERSECUTION
A. (:1) The Goal is Abiding in Christ by Grace Through Faith
“These things I have spoken to you, that you may be kept from stumbling.”
B. (:2-3) Trying Times of Religious Persecution Are Coming
1. (:2) Self Deceived Motive of Spiritual Service
“They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.”
2. (:3) Actual Motive of Spiritual Ignorance
“And these things they will do, because they have not known the Father, or Me.”
C. (:4-6) Knowledge of the Future Can Be a Mixed Blessing –
Immediate sorrow … but lasting encouragement
1. (:4) Persecution Foretold Ahead of Time
“But these things I have spoken to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.”
2. (:5) Separation Brings Increased Pressure … Should Stir Our Curiosity
“And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are you going?’”
Disciples are too preoccupied with themselves and the difficulties that lie ahead to be able to focus on what revelation Christ has for them.
3. (:6) Sorrow is the Immediate Reaction . . . Until We fully understand and trust the resources God has provided
“But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.”
(Verses 5-6 are transitional and could be taken with the next section as well.)