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Sermon

Jesus Promises Persecution

Speaker
David Capoccia
Scripture
John 15:18–16:4a

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Note: This transcript and summary was autogenerated. It has not yet been proofread or edited by a human.

Summary

This passage from John 15:18–16:4 teaches us that persecution is not merely possible for followers of Christ—it is promised. Jesus prepares His disciples by explaining why the world hates them and how they should respond. We are reminded that the world’s hatred is not random or personal; it flows from our identity in Christ, the world’s rejection of Jesus and the Father, and the fulfillment of Scripture. We are called to bear empowered witness through the Holy Spirit even in the face of opposition, and to take courage that persecution confirms rather than undermines our faith.

Key Lessons:

  1. The world hates Christians not because of who they are personally, but because they belong to Christ and are no longer of the world.
  2. Rejecting Jesus is ultimately rejecting God the Father, since Jesus is the full revelation of the Father—no one can claim to love God while rejecting His Son.
  3. The Holy Spirit empowers believers to bear faithful witness to Christ even amid persecution, and such witness is not optional but essential to discipleship.
  4. Jesus foretells persecution so that when it comes, it strengthens our faith rather than destroys it, confirming that His words are true.

Application: We are called to examine whether we have truly surrendered ourselves to follow Christ at any cost—including persecution and even death. If we have drifted into valuing comfort or approval over faithfulness, today is the day to repent and recommit to bearing witness for Christ by the Spirit’s power.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Have you experienced a time when persecution for your faith caught you off guard? How did it affect your walk with Christ?
  2. Why is it significant that Jesus says the world “already” hates us (present tense)? How should this shape our expectations as we live and witness in the world?
  3. What practical steps can we take as a church to prepare one another for persecution and to encourage faithful witness even when it is costly?

Scripture Focus: John 15:18–16:4 is the central passage, teaching that persecution is promised and purposeful. Supporting passages include Romans 1:18-19 (all are without excuse), Luke 9:23 (taking up the cross daily), Genesis 50:20 (God means it for good), and 1 Peter 1:6-7 (joy and proven faith through trials).

Outline

Introduction

Such wonderful songs. Such a joy to sing them with you, brothers and sisters.

Thank you musicians for leading us.

Let’s open in a word of prayer.

Father, I pray that you would speak to your people now. Jesus, speak to your people now. Spirit, speak to your people now. We have weighty things from your word to discuss and not just learn about, but to put into practice.

Spirit, help us for this. Christ, help us for this. Father, help us for this.

Protect us from distractions. Help me to be able to speak this as I ought in Jesus’ name. Amen.

A Personal Story of Persecution

In opening today’s sermon, I thought I would tell a little story.

For those of you who don’t know my salvation testimony, the Lord brought me to repentance and faith while I was in middle school. Yet, it was in high school that my love for the Lord and his word really took off.

I became a zealous witness for Jesus Christ during my last two years of public high school. I was always looking to give and stand up for the gospel.

Whether it was in class or at lunch with my friends or after school, I was just so thrilled to talk about Jesus and the Bible. Amazingly, many of my fellow students appeared receptive to what I had to say.

Sure, there were a few who accused me of being holier than thou or who gossiped about me behind my back, but I just shrugged all that off.

I was a bit mystified at how little persecution I had suffered.

“I thought I had discovered the secret—how to be winsome yet faithful and not experience persecution.”

On the contrary, it seemed like I enjoyed the respect of almost all my peers. I remember thinking to myself, I have discovered the secret: how to be winsome yet faithful in Christian witness and not experience persecution.

Well, when I went to college, I continued my lifestyle of enthusiastic witness for Jesus. I attended Ruckers University in New Brunswick, I lived on campus, and I met only one other professing Christian in my dormitory.

I was excited to bring the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ to the rest of my dormates.

One day when I was sitting in the cafeteria having lunch with some dorm friends, one of them swore using God’s name. I told him, “Oh, you don’t need to say that,” thinking that this was a polite way to express that I valued the name of my God.

But immediately after I said this sentence, I was attacked. Not by the person I just corrected, not by my unbelieving dorm friends who were sitting nearby, but actually by the one other professing Christian from my dorm.

For about ten minutes, she spat angry words of condemnation at me, telling me ironically how judgmental I was and how disgustingly I was misrepresenting the love of Jesus. I could barely defend myself due to the shock.

The rest of my dorm friends silently watched or soon found other places to eat.

I don’t remember how the conversation ended, but I remember what I did afterwards. I went back to my dorm room and I went to sleep. It was the middle of the day, but I was so shaken up and exhausted.

Now, what about you? For those of you who know Jesus Christ, were you surprised the first time that you suffered real persecution for Jesus? Or were you surprised when persecution came at you from a certain person or direction that you never expected?

Persecution Is Promised

Maybe you hear my story and you say to yourself, “Actually, I haven’t experienced something like that before, and I sure hope I never do.” Well, the truth is, brethren and friends with us, persecution, suffering, mistreatment for Jesus’ name, it is not only possible for Christians or even probable for Christians.

It is promised.

“Persecution for Jesus’ name is not only possible or probable for Christians. It is promised.”

It is promised in God’s Bible. God doesn’t share that truth with us to depress us or to keep us away from following Jesus. God tells us for at least three good reasons.

First, so that we appropriately count the cost before choosing to follow Jesus. Second, so that we are not so destabilized when persecution comes. Third, so that the experience of persecution will actually strengthen our faith rather than destroy it.

This is what we’ll learn from Jesus himself in our next passage in the Gospel of John. If you haven’t already, please take your Bibles and turn there. Turn to John 15 where we will see today Jesus promises persecution.

Jesus promises persecution.

Specifically, we’re looking at John 15:18 to the beginning of John 16:4 today. If you’re using the Bibles that we provided, you could find our new passage starting on page 1,079.

Context of the Farewell Discourse

Before I read our new text, let’s recall the context in which these words appear.

We are still in Jesus’ farewell discourse of John 13 to 17. It’s a final word of comfort and instruction to Jesus’ 11 disciples before Jesus’ crucifixion.

By now, we’re more than halfway through the discourse. Up to this point, Jesus’ words have been mostly comforting.

In John 13, Jesus commanded his disciples to follow his own example of love and humble service. In John 14, Jesus gives eight promises, eight heavenly comforting promises to his disciples as to how he will care for them after he leaves. In the beginning of John 15:1-11, Jesus exhorted his disciples to abide in him, to hold fast to him, his teaching, and his commands like a branch abides in a vine so that they will bear lasting fruit for God.

“Jesus exhorted his disciples to abide in him like a branch abides in a vine so they will bear lasting fruit.”

In John 15:12-17, which is where we were last time that we were in John together, Jesus emphasized that the most necessary fruit of their abiding in him is love. They are to love one another like Jesus loves us.

But why exhort the disciples to persevering faith and obedience? Is there some kind of trouble coming?

Oh yes, indeed there is. Jesus speaks about this next in our new passage. Let’s read it now. Follow along with me. John 15:18 to John 16:4. Jesus speaking says, “If the world hates you, that it has hated me before it hated you.

If you are 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, because of this, the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.

If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake, because they do not know the one who sent me.

If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sinned. But now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sinned.

But now they have both seen and hated me and my father as well. But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their law. They hated me without a cause.

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 testify about me and you will testify also because you have been with me from the beginning.

These things I have spoken to you that you may be kept from stumbling. They will make you outcast from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.

These things they will do because they have not known the Father or me. But these things I have spoken to you so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.”

What do we see in this passage? It is pretty simple. Jesus promises his disciples, first the apostles, but everyone’s sense. He promises persecution.

But Jesus doesn’t just promise persecution. He also explains that persecution and thus prepares his disciples for it.

My proposition for leading us through this text is the following. Here Jesus explains three crucial truths to prepare you for promised persecution.

Three crucial truths to prepare you as Jesus’ disciples for promised persecution.

Relevance to John’s Original Audience

Now, before we begin looking at those truths, consider how relevant this passage would be for John’s original audience. Remember, according to the statement in John 20:31, this is an evangelistic gospel. It’s meant to make you believe. I’ll read that verse again.

John 20:31. But these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

John writes primarily to religious people, even monotheistic Jews and God-fearing Gentiles. Such persons would profess already to believe in God, but they are not yet sure whether they want to believe in Christ.

What might make these monotheistic religious Jews and Gentiles hesitant? Well, persecution for one. In believing in Jesus, such people were likely to be cut off from Jewish families and society, all their friends.

Furthermore, the Gospel of John is likely written around AD 95 or during Roman Emperor Domitian’s crackdown on Christians. Thus, seemingly if John’s original readers stayed within Judaism or close by Judaism, they’d be safe from both these sources of persecution.

“Why believe in Jesus? Why willingly suffer mistreatment? Jesus’ explanation will provide the answer.”

So why believe in Jesus? Why willingly suffer mistreatment? Jesus’ explanation will provide the answer.

Truth #1: The World Now Hates You

The first crucial truth to prepare believers for promised persecution appears in verses 18 to 25. This is going to be the largest of the three truths we discussed, and that is number one: the world now hates you.

Yes, Jesus doesn’t sugarcoat the situation. To follow Jesus means the people of the world will and already do hate you.

“To follow Jesus means the people of the world will and already do hate you.”

But why? Why should the world hate people who love God, love the truth, and love righteousness? I mean, Christians are model citizens, model spouses, model parents. Shouldn’t the world love us?

Well, in these verses, Jesus doesn’t just state the what of the world’s hatred, but also the why. I’ll give you those reasons as subpoints. Four reasons from Jesus why the world now hates you, oh Christian.

Because You Are Not of the World

The first is one, because you’re not of the world.

Because you are not of the world.

Look at verse 18 again.

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

Notice the term world in this verse.

What is the world here?

Well, Jesus is not speaking of the physical world or universe. Rather, as is the usual case in this gospel, Jesus uses the world to refer to all mankind in rebellion against God, fallen humanity. That’s what he means by world.

And what is it that this world does according to Jesus? It hates. Now, hate is a strong word as we all know. Yet, it is the right word for what Jesus describes in this passage.

Like our English word, the Greek word for hate means to have a strong aversion to or to detest.

And Jesus says, “Such generally will be mankind, fallen mankind’s feeling for you as his disciples.” Backing up in verse 18, notice that Jesus says, “If the world hates you, does this mean that fallen man, fallen mankind’s hatred is just a theoretical possibility?”

Well, no. Jesus will quickly clarify that this theoretical situation is real.

We could take the sense of the beginning of verse 18 here as if the world hates you and it does, then what? Well, the rest of verse 18, Jesus says that there is a reality that clarifies the world’s hatred against you. Namely, that the world has hated Jesus first.

Has hated is the way it’s translated in our New American Standard 95. And that reflects the Greek. It’s the perfect tense. It means that this hatred began in the past and it continues in the present.

Why does the world hate Jesus? Well, by now this gospel has clarified that answer multiple times in multiple ways.

Because Jesus is the light and the world loves darkness. Because Jesus is the righteousness of God and the world loves sin.

Because Jesus fundamentally is not of this world.

“Jesus is the righteousness of God and the world loves sin. Jesus fundamentally is not of this world.”

He is the holy son of God.

Thus, a fundamentally wicked world can find no place for him.

Christ Chose Us Out of the World

And what has always been true of Jesus becomes true for us by God’s grace in the gospel. Look now at verse 19.

“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, because of this, the world hates you.”

What does Jesus tell us here? That like him, we Christians are now fundamentally no longer of the world.

There was a time when we were part of the world, intimately a part of the world, enslaved to various sins and lusts like the rest.

But Jesus chose us out of the world. Or more literally, he chose us for himself out of the world.

In sovereign but undeserved favor, Jesus revealed himself to us in such a way that we could not help but drop our rebellion against him.

He put his spirit in us. He caused us to trust in him wholly for our salvation apart from any works that we could provide. He caused us to turn from our sin and our old ways.

He moved us to proclaim him as Lord in our hearts and ourselves as his disciples and slaves.

He transformed us into the family of God so that we might enjoy God’s eternal life forever.

“Jesus chose us for himself out of the world. He transformed us into the family of God.”

And our old family has noticed the change. They realize that we are not one of them anymore.

We don’t talk and act like they do anymore. We no longer have the same sinful loves and idols.

And it’s not merely that we’re different now, but we’re different in a way that convicts them. We are still sinners, but we’re growing in practical righteousness, and we are speaking God’s truth.

We are now fundamentally not of the world. We live in the world but we are not of the world. The light of heaven shines through us to the world.

And the world of darkness hates that and thus automatically hates us.

And do notice the word “hates” in verse 19 is present tense. So it’s not that they will hate us. They already do, by nature of who we are.

Because the World Hates Your Lord

The second reason the world now hates us is implicit in the first: because the world hates your Lord.

Look at verses 20 and 21.

“Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake because they do not know the one who sent me.”

Sometimes when you suffer persecution, a brother or sister might remind you: remember, it’s not personal. That is to say, people don’t hate you because of you. They hate you because of who you follow.

The one they really hate is Jesus. The world cannot stand him. But he’s not around anymore, so the world will take out its hatred on what it can reach—you, his slave.

“They hate you because of who you follow. The one they really hate is Jesus.”

In the beginning of verse 20, Jesus tells his disciples to remember what he had said to them only a couple chapters ago in John 13:16: “A slave is not greater than his master.” Earlier, Jesus had used this proverb to emphasize that to whatever level of humble service Jesus lowers himself, his disciples must do the same.

But now Jesus repeats the proverb with a different application. Whatever level of hatred or mistreatment Jesus experiences, his disciples must expect the same.

After all, it’s not like anyone’s going to treat a lowly slave better than a great master. So we must not expect that we will escape persecution when Jesus himself did not.

Expect the Same Reaction Jesus Received

Rather, as Jesus goes on to say, we can expect the same reaction to our word on Jesus’ behalf as Jesus himself received to his word.

And what was the reaction to Jesus’ proclaimed word? It’s what we’ve already seen in this gospel: near total rejection and hostility.

There was a small remnant that listened, believed, and persevered in following Jesus. But it was the exception, not the rule.

Jesus tells us, “Expect the same for yourselves. Most will reject and be hostile to you. Only a chosen remnant will hear and keep your word.”

“Expect the same for yourselves. Most will reject you. Only a chosen remnant will hear and keep your word.”

And why? Because of Jesus’ name. Because of your association with, your identification with Jesus.

He ultimately is the preacher that they cannot stand. He’s the savior they reject. He’s the Lord that they rebel against.

But he’s your savior and lord.

So inevitably, you will be caught in the world’s crossfire against Christ. There’s no avoiding it.

But it’s not just Jesus the world hates. Yes, even the religious people of the world—they are part of the world too.

They chiefly hate someone else. As Jesus says at the end of verse 21, because they do not know the one who sent me—who sent Jesus? God. God the Father.

Because the World Hates the Father

Thus, the end of verse 21 functions as a transition to the third reason why the world now hates us: because the world hates the father.

Look at verses 22 to 24.

If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. But now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my father also. 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.

“Now they have both seen and hated me and my Father as well.”

Now, at first glance, these verses may seem confusing to you because Jesus seems to suggest that people would be sinless if Jesus never came. And Jesus keeps going back and forth, talking about himself and talking about the father. What’s going on here?

Well, these verses become clearer when we realize that Jesus speaks here of how he showed the father to the world. And how did Jesus do that? We’ve seen this already in the gospel. It’s through Jesus’ words and works, which are really the father’s words and works because Jesus will not do anything unless the father gave him to do it or to say it.

Now the Bible is clear that even if someone never hears about Jesus, is never presented the gospel, that person is still a sinner who justly deserves hell forever for his sin. Romans 1:18 and 19 is an example of this fact.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them.

You see, unbelief in Jesus is not the only sin that damns. All of us fundamentally have rebelled against God. However much revelation you’ve gotten, whether you grew up around Christianity or not, all of us have fundamentally rebelled against God and have suppressed within ourselves even the basic truths about God that are known from creation and conscience.

So there’s no excuse for anybody. We all deserve hell.

Nevertheless, rejecting Jesus as the only savior from sin and as the clearest and full revelation of God is the greatest sin, and it is the only sin from which there can be no recovery. All other sins, think of the worst sins possible. All other sins may be forgiven if you believe in Jesus.

But if you don’t believe, if you won’t believe in Jesus, that sin and every other sin in your record can never be forgiven.

Jesus as the Full Revelation of the Father

Furthermore, unbelief in Jesus is the great exposer of the hypocritical sinful heart of religious people.

I’ve talked about this before, but sometimes people suggest to us that these Jews, Roman Catholics, Muslims—they’re very sincere in their religion. Just listen to the hymns they sing to God. Look at how moral they are in their behavior.

So they don’t accept Jesus according to the true gospel, but surely they still love God and God will accept them.

No, absolutely not. God’s word leaves no room for such a conclusion.

Why not? Because Jesus is the explainer of God. He is the full revelation of the Father.

Jesus’s words and works are the Father’s words and works given to the Son to do, so that Jesus can say, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”

Thus, if you are religious and you say you love God, but you reject Jesus, you are a liar.

“If you are religious and say you love God but reject Jesus, you are a liar.”

However you react to the Son, you react to the Father and vice versa. They are two members of the same one Godhead. They cannot be separated from one another.

Thus, Jesus says what he does here in verses 22 to 24.

If Jesus had come with the Father’s words and the Father’s works—works which no one else did, works which set Jesus apart even from the most prominent prophets of the Old Testament—then Jesus was clearly acting with the Father’s authority, with the Father’s empowerment. He was the perfect Son completely fulfilling his Father’s will and revealing the Father. That’s what his words and works prove. That’s what they do.

If Jesus had not come that way, then the religious people of the world would have an excuse for unbelief. I mean, not a real excuse, but a pretext.

They could say, “Yes, I rejected Jesus, but I really do love God.” Or rather, we could just delete the first part because there’s no Jesus to even compare it to. I really do love God.

God knows every person’s heart, but in terms of external evidence, how could religious people be charged with sin? They seem very religious. They seem like they really love God. How can you really prove that their devotion to God is false?

No Excuse for Rejecting Jesus

Well, the fact is that Jesus came with his Father’s own works and words, which exposed the Jews at that time.

They were whatever they claimed. Whatever love for God they protested, they exposed themselves as hypocrites.

Those who did not love God but loved themselves and loved sin were not sons of God. They were sons of the devil.

Why? Because they rejected the perfect revelation of the Father. You can’t say you love the Father and then reject his Son. You’ve exposed yourself.

“You can’t say you love the Father and then reject His Son. You’ve exposed yourself.”

And what is true of the Jews who had the most reason to truly love God apart from Jesus must be true of every other kind of religious person in the world.

They have no excuse for their sin, not even a pretext. You say you love God, but you ignore and reject Jesus—you don’t love God.

Religious people are in the end still people of the world. They hate Jesus and thus hate Jesus’s Father also. They saw the Father in Jesus.

Thus in seeing and hating Jesus, they see and hate the Father also.

Appeal to Those Considering the Gospel

A word is appropriate for those of you who are considering faith in Jesus, who’ve not yet believed, but are considering.

Hear what Jesus says here. If you think you can love God without loving Jesus, you are dead wrong.

If you ignore or reject Jesus, you show that despite whatever religion you adopt, whatever religiosity you adopt, you are of the world and you are still in hateful rebellion against God and against his Christ.

“If you think you can love God without loving Jesus, you are dead wrong.”

That is not a place you want to stay in. Don’t stay in that doomed rebellion. Turn from your sin and turn to Jesus by faith today.

Then for you brethren, let’s relate Jesus’s words back to his main point. Why does the world have such vicious and otherwise unexplainable hatred for us?

Because we are not of the world, because the world hates our Lord, and because the world hates God.

Because Such Hatred Fulfills Scripture

But there is one more perhaps surprising reason why the world hates us Christians, which we see in verse 25.

“But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their law. They hated me without a cause.” This is one demonstration.

Because such hatred fulfills God’s scripture.

In verse 25, Jesus explains the hateful reaction of the world to him and consequently to his Father and to his followers as fulfilling the Jews’ own scripture.

Which scripture?

It’s a bit hard to say.

Most interpreters conclude that Jesus is citing one or both of Psalms 35 and 69. These are both Psalms of David, which speak not only of David’s own experience, but also foretell the experience of David’s seed, including the Christ.

We don’t have time to read these two psalms right now. I encourage you to do so later.

But both psalms speak of the Messiah suffering mistreatment for loving God and doing what’s right.

Specifically, the cited references might be Psalm 35:19: “Do not let those who are wrongfully my enemies rejoice over me, nor let those who hate me without cause wink maliciously.” And then there’s Psalm 69:4, which says, “Those who hate me without cause are more than the hairs of my head. Those who would destroy me are powerful, being wrongfully my enemies.”

Psalm 69:4: “Those who hate me without cause are more than the hairs of my head.”

So Jesus could be quoting one or both psalms and saying the Jews fulfill those scriptures. The world fulfills that scripture.

However, this idea of God’s Messiah, God’s people, even God himself being hated without just cause is not confined to these two psalms. Rather, it is a truth demonstrated throughout the Old Testament. Let me give you a sampling of verses.

God asks in Isaiah 5:4 about Israel: “What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done for it? Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes, did it produce worthless ones?”

God asks again in Jeremiah 2:5 about Israel, supposedly his people who love him: “What injustice did your fathers find in me that they went far from me and walked after emptiness and became empty?”

Or one more example: God tells Samuel when the people of Israel ask for a king like the nations in 1 Samuel 8:7-8: “Listen to the voice of the people and regard all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you but they have rejected me from being king over them. Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this day, they have forsaken me and served other gods.”

So they are doing to you also.

Hatred Without Cause Goes Back to the Garden

Really, you could say the truth—this whole truth of unjustified hatred for God from his people—it goes back to the garden. It goes back to Genesis 3 when God gave our first parents so much abundance upon abundance and an exalted and glorious position as an underruler of God. And what did they do?

They rebelled.

And we can’t look at that and not see the instant parallel to ourselves.

How terrible and unjustified has our own rebellion against God been. We too have hated him and hated his Christ without cause, without good cause. God and his ways were only ever our good and we have kicked against it.

“We too have hated Him without cause. God and His ways were only ever our good and we kicked against it.”

Yet how wonderful God’s mercy has been toward us to forgive us and to turn us rebels into fellow heirs with his son.

Again, I want to give an application to those of you still considering the gospel.

See your rebellion for what it is. It is hatred without cause. Stop it this instant.

You are fighting against the God of life, the God of love, who has not given you what you deserve.

Seek his pardon. Seek his pardon in Jesus Christ right now.

He will freely give it to you. That’s the amazing thing. Even though your hatred of him has been so unjustified and heinous, he will freely give you pardon if you ask for it.

Tell him you’re laying down your rebel arms and give homage to his son, King Jesus.

Don’t let this word that Jesus says, which condemns all the falsely religious, stay true of you.

They hated me without cause.

God’s Sovereignty Over Persecution

But again, this brings us back to Jesus’s point here. One final reason that the world and even its religious people hate us is because God foretold it, and not just foretold it, but he forordained it.

After all, God is not just a really good predictor. He’s not one who looks down the corridors of time to see what will happen and how man will respond to what he does.

No, he’s the sovereign God whose decree has been established since before the foundation of the world. There is no persecution that will ever happen to God’s people unless God has ordained it, and he will only do so for his people’s ultimate good and for his deserved glory.

“There is no persecution that will happen to God’s people unless God has ordained it for their ultimate good.”

Remember, even in Genesis 3:15, when God gives the curse to the serpent, God says that he will put enmity between the seed of the serpent and the righteous seed of the first woman. God put the enmity there, and that’s exactly what has happened.

That’s what you see in biblical history. That’s what you see in church history, and that’s what you see today.

Let us not be surprised that the world hates us, nor let us be discouraged, because Genesis 50:20 says what the world means for evil, God means for good. It’s all under his hand.

Going back to our first crucial truth: the world now hates us. We now know four of the reasons, but we don’t want to miss the main point. The world now hates us.

But how are we to respond to this hatred? And even if we know, how will we have the strength to respond in the way that God would want us to?

Truth #2: You Will Bear Empowered Witness

Well, we get the answer in the second crucial truth in verses 26 and 27.

Number two, you will bear empowered witness. You will bear empowered witness. Look at those two verses again.

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 testify about me and you will testify also because you have been with me from the beginning.

John 15:26-27: “He will testify about me, and you will testify also because you have been with me from the beginning.”

For the third time in this discourse, we see Jesus promise help for his people in the coming Holy Spirit.

Notice here again as in John 14:16 and John 14:26, the Holy Spirit is called the helper or your translation might say the advocate.

This again is that Greek word paraclete, sometimes transliterated as paraclete.

I’ll say paraclete because it’s easier.

Paraclete most literally means someone called alongside to help.

And aren’t you glad that the spirit has been called alongside to help us?

The Spirit as Helper and Witness

Jesus, by going to the cross and later ascending to heaven, couldn’t remain as a paraclete for us, his people, anymore. He couldn’t witness bodily to his truth anymore.

But he sends a replacement—a replacement paraclete, a replacement helper—to testify of the truth on his behalf, to testify of Jesus.

Now notice that the way Jesus sends the spirit is described in a slightly different way than it was before. In John 14:15, Jesus said that he would ask the father and then the father would give the spirit. In John 14:26, Jesus says that the father would send the spirit to the disciples in Jesus’ name.

But now in John 15:26, Jesus says that he will send the spirit from the father and also that the spirit proceeds from the father.

Who’s sending the spirit to help the disciples and to bear witness of Jesus? Is it the son or is it the father?

The answer is yes. They work together in sending the spirit. Or in my understanding, the father sends the spirit on behalf of and by means of the son.

Now the question arises: how does the spirit help believers and how does the spirit testify of Christ?

The spirit helps believers in various ways, and some of them have already been discussed in John 14. But here the specific way that the spirit helps—the one that Jesus mentioned—is one particular task: to empower Jesus’ disciples, to empower you, to testify on Jesus’ behalf.

Though the spirit has a heart conviction and heart regeneration ministry that goes beyond what any of us can accomplish, God has ordained that the spirit’s testimony of Christ will be through your own.

“God has ordained that the Spirit’s testimony of Christ will be through your own.”

Notice the beginning phrase of verse 27.

You Must Testify of Christ

And you will testify also.

If you have the New American Standard 95 translation from which I am preaching, you may notice that the word “will” is italicized. That’s not because the word “will” is supposed to be emphatic, as in “you will testify.” No, it’s the translator’s way of letting you know that the word “will” is not literally there in the original Greek text, but the sense probably is.

Actually, the reason “will” is not there in verse 27 is because the word “testify” is not actually future tense. It’s in the present tense. Not “you will testify,” but “you testify” or “you bear witness.” But that doesn’t make sense because the disciples aren’t doing that right now.

So that’s why the translators put it into the future tense. It seems to make more sense that way. But there is another possibility for resolving why the verb is in the present tense, and this is the way that I lean. The statement likely is not meant as an indicative, a statement of fact, but as an imperative, as a command.

You must testify of Christ also.

That’s what Jesus is saying in verse 27.

After all, there is no such thing as a Christian who does not bear witness of Christ. That is a contradiction in terms.

“There is no such thing as a Christian who does not bear witness of Christ. That is a contradiction in terms.”

The witnessing spirit is given to you so that you will be empowered to be Christ’s witness to the world.

Now such witnessing was particularly important for the original disciples. They were, as Jesus says, eyewitnesses. They had been with Jesus from the beginning—that is, from the beginning of his ministry.

They thus needed to testify of what they saw and heard around Jesus and of what the spirit later revealed to them as Jesus’s chosen representatives. The apostles had a key role to fulfill as foundation layers of Jesus’s church, so that required their faithful testimony.

Now we’re not the apostles, but we must be witnesses as well. We are called as those who build upon the apostles’ foundation of Jesus’s church.

Can we do it? Can we give faithful witness amid the world’s hate and persecution? Faithful witness of Christ by the spirit—yes. If we didn’t have the spirit, no, no way. But by the spirit, yes.

In fact, our witness will be all the more powerful and all the more God-glorifying because it is given in the midst of persecution.

By the way, the Greek word for “bear witness” or “testify” is the word “martus,” from which we get “martyr.” Martyr is just a Greek word for “witness,” and it was the witnesses unto death for Christ—which were many of our ancient brethren—which changed the meaning of the word to have its present meaning in English.

In English now, “martyr” means, one dictionary says, “a person who voluntarily suffers death as the penalty for declaring belief in and refusing to renounce a religion.”

What It Means to Take Up Your Cross

What does it mean to follow Christ and become his disciple?

There are a lot of ways of answering that question, but one of them is it means figuratively to put yourself to death, to give yourself over to be killed for Jesus’ sake.

Didn’t Jesus himself say that? I saw a version of it in the scripture we read earlier. But another famous verse is Luke 9:23.

Luke 9:23 says, “And he, Jesus, was saying to them all, if anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” What does it mean to take up your cross daily?

It does not mean to carry some life burden around or to endure some trial.

It means to be ready to die for the Lord.

“Taking up your cross daily means being ready to die for the Lord.”

Because back then, if you were carrying a cross, it’s because you were bearing it to your execution site. That’s what Jesus did when he bore the cross.

So Jesus says, “My true disciples pick up their own crosses daily. They are daily giving themselves up. Daily giving themselves over to death for my sake if necessary.”

Why would anyone do that?

Because they believe that Jesus is the truth and they want the eternal life that he offers. Not just his eternal life, but eternal joy.

As the book of Hebrews says, “Here we have no lasting city, but we are seeking the city which has foundations.”

I will take up the cross if I can be with Jesus in that city.

A Call to Renewed Commitment

Now, brethren, I don’t expect that most of you or maybe even any of you will have to literally die for the Lord. I don’t know. I’m not a prophet. I don’t know what will happen in the future.

Nevertheless, if you still haven’t given yourself over in your heart to whatever obedience or service or suffering is necessary for Jesus’ sake, then you are not yet a Christian.

You’ve not yet taken up the cross. You’ve not yet denied yourself. You haven’t yet learned what it means to come after Jesus, to be his disciple, to be his witness.

Now, in our cushy society and relative freedom of religion here in the United States, it would be easy to make such a sacrificial commitment to Jesus and then drift away from it, to start valuing your own comfort or people’s approval over faithfulness to your Lord.

If that is where any of you are today, then today is a day in which you need to repent and come back to that attitude you had at first.

If we must die for Jesus, then so be it. God will have to give us the grace for it, and he promises he will.

“If we must die for Jesus, then so be it. God will have to give us the grace for it, and He promises He will.”

But if we must suffer something short of death out of love for Jesus—some prolonged trial, some united opposition against us—well then so be it. God will have to give us the grace for it, and he’s already promised that he will.

Are you willing to walk that path with your Lord? That’s what it means to be his disciple.

So then we’ve seen two crucial truths that prepare us for promised persecution. One, the world already hates us. Two, we will bear empowered witness by the Spirit.

Truth #3: Jesus Told You Beforehand

The final crucial truth appears in John 1:4. And that is number three. Jesus told you all beforehand.

Jesus told us all beforehand. Let’s read these last verses all together.

These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling.

They will make you outcast from the synagogue. But an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think he is offering service to God. These things they will do because they have not known the Father or me. But these things I have spoken to you so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

Well, like we saw earlier in the farewell discourse, John 14:25-31, this last section here is both a new point and a summary of what has previously been spoken.

Notice how in verse one, Jesus tells his disciples why he’s talking straight to them about persecution: to keep them from stumbling.

The word translated stumbling is the Greek word scandalo, from which we get our word scandal. Most literally, skandalizo refers to falling into a trap or falling over a stumbling block. Figuratively, the term can refer to falling into sin or even falling away from the faith.

It is from such concern that Jesus tells us about inevitable persecution.

“Worse than suffering persecution would be to not expect it, experience it, and then turn away from Jesus.”

To say it another way, worse than suffering actual persecution, even persecution to death for Jesus’ sake, would be not to expect persecution, but experience it and then to become so disheartened as to turn away from Jesus.

Jesus wants to prevent that.

So Jesus doesn’t pull his punches. He tells his disciples exactly what they should expect. He gets specific for his apostles in verses two and three. My dear brethren, they—that is the world including the Jews—will ban you from synagogue. You will be excluded from that social hub and thus made a pariah of Jewish society.

Worse, these Jews, these supposedly pious lovers of God, will murder you and think they’ve just done God a holy service. The irony being completely lost on them.

But be assured that they will do this because they never knew God and they don’t really know me.

The Religious as Fierce Persecutors

By the way, let’s appreciate from that statement, those two verses, that the religious can be some of the fiercest persecutors of Christians.

We may be familiar with the terrible persecutions that the irreligious can inflict on Christians. Maybe you think of those atheistic communist states that have caused millions of Christians to die or suffer over the 20th century.

But let’s not forget that religious people and religious governments can be just as bad, if not worse.

We think of the ancient Roman Empire as being a godless state, but that’s not true. Repeatedly, the Roman emperors who persecuted Christians did it for the sake of the gods. They said, “We got to secure God’s favor on our nation and these Christians are disrupting that. We got to get rid of them.”

The Roman Catholic Church during the medieval and Reformation times was responsible for the deaths of millions of people, many of them true believers, by heresy executions and religious wars.

And Islam, supposedly peace-loving Islam, has also persecuted, killed, or forced conversions of millions of Christians over the years. And it is still doing that today.

These supposed lovers of God.

So let us not be surprised when the religious, yes, even those who claim to be Christians too, turn out to persecute us and think they’re worshiping God in doing so.

“Let us not be surprised when the religious turn out to persecute us and think they’re worshiping God in doing so.”

Rather than be surprised, what does Jesus tell us to do in verse four?

When their hour comes, he says, when the hour comes for such persecutions, remember what? Remember that I told you of them.

I told you these very persecutions would come.

Persecution Confirms Jesus’ Word

Why would remembering Jesus’s words about persecution be helpful?

Because they are more proof that Jesus tells us the truth and that he is everything that he claimed to be. He is the Son of God and the Lord.

Amen.

Brethren, hear this. This will sound strange when I say it.

The fact that true Christians are incessantly and insanely persecuted throughout history should be an encouraging fact to you.

Why?

Because there is no satisfactory explanation for that except that Jesus is God and Christ.

Which means that your believing in him and yes, you’re even suffering for him is not in vain. It’s not in vain. Jesus is the truth.

“There is no satisfactory explanation for the persecution of Christians except that Jesus is God and Christ.”

Joy Through Persecution

Indeed, one of the counterintuitive results of persecution on prepared Christians is joy.

Because you may say, why? Because these Christians see Jesus’s words from scripture confirmed. They see their own faith confirmed as they persevere through fiery trial.

And because by perseverance they and we, as we join in that, get to put Jesus’s worth on display for the whole universe.

Is that your great desire? You want to put Jesus on display. You want him to be glorified in your life. Persecution is one of the best ways you can do that.

So when it happens, it’s an opportunity for your joy.

And isn’t this exactly the comfort that Peter gives to suffering Christians in 1 Peter? Peter writes in 1 Peter 1:6-7, “In this, that is in this salvation, you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials.

So that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

1 Peter 1:6-7: “The proof of your faith, more precious than gold tested by fire, may result in praise and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

That doesn’t take away all the pain and persecution, but it gives you an avenue of joy and confidence in the midst of it.

Conclusion: Abide in Christ Without Fear

So brethren, let us not be naive and let us not be unprepared.

Jesus promises us persecution.

But let us also not be afraid because Jesus has put us in the know.

We know that the world hates us and we know why. We are not of the world anymore. The world hates our Lord. The world hates the Father. And the world’s hatred fulfills scripture.

We also know what our calling is amid persecution: to bear empowered witness for Christ.

And we know that the persecution, when it comes, will only confirm the Lord’s word in our own faith.

So really, if we will abide in Christ as he commanded us to do, then there is nothing to fear. Let persecution come.

“If we will abide in Christ, there is nothing to fear. Let persecution come. Stay in Jesus and He will keep you.”

Stay in Jesus and he will keep you. He will keep us safe until the end. And let’s encourage each other in these truths as a church. Let’s close in prayer.

Lord God, I know it is much easier to speak of persecution than to actually endure it.

But many of us here, many in this very body have endured and are currently enduring sustained persecution from the world.

God, we are not to be surprised by this. You told us that it would come. You told us that already the world hates us because we are not of it anymore.

Nevertheless, God, we confess that in our flesh, we are fearful. We are fearful of standing up for you. We are fearful of bearing faithful witness because of the cost.

We will lose relationships, maybe lose financial opportunities, we will maybe even be physically hurt. And who knows, God may even have to give up our lives.

But God, why are we here if not to glorify you? What is the point of living if we’re not doing that?

So God, whatever you have ordained for us, help us to fulfill by your spirit. Help us to bear witness. Help us to be your martyrs, to be your witnesses to this world, so that those who are in rebellion against you will have no excuse.

But for those whom you have called as your sheep, they will be drawn out and they will join us in worship and witness of your Son.

God, help us not to be afraid but to be faithful. Help us to endure when persecution comes. And help us not to be persecuted for the wrong reasons.

God, I pray that we would not be foolish and open ourselves up for hurt that we don’t need to. And neither, God, as your word says, that we would suffer because of our sins and then label it persecution. Oh God, protect us from that. Help us not to be unloving. Help us not to be hypocritical.

Rather, God, help us to be like the Lord Jesus.

And therefore, when the persecution comes, we can take joy rather than hide our faces in shame.

God, we believe your word, not only that persecution is coming, but you will enable us to stand up in it. Jesus, help us to abide in you until you come to get us. Amen.

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