John 15:18 "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet 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 keep yours also. 21 "But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. 22 "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 "He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. 25 "But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'

In this section Jesus makes it very clear that if you have trusted Him as your Lord and Savior that the world will hate us because it hated and still hates Him. The people of the world love us if we live like they do in sin, but when we live for God they hate us because we make them feel guilty and look bad. Jesus reminds them that they are His because He first loved them and chose them. He says that we will be persecuted because they even did it to Him and He is both Lord and Creator of everything.  Then He says that the Pharisees and those who have heard His word would not be guilty of willfully rejecting Him if He had not come and revealed Himself.  The principle of the Bible is that we are all guilty and deserving of hell according to Romans Chapters 1:16-3:31, but the more we know about God, the guiltier we become. If we respond to the light or revelation of Christ we have been given, God will show us more about Him (John 7:17). Lastly, He says that you cannot know God and do not love Him if you hate the Son Jesus. Anyone who claims to love God and hates Jesus is a liar. He finishes by saying that people hate Jesus for no reason other than He condemns their sin.  He never did anything wrong that would make them hate Him. 2 Timothy 3:12 Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

1. The world hates us because it hates Jesus Christ

18 "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.

1. The world hates us because we are not like them,

19 "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Loves it’s own things, Loves itself.

James 4:4 You adulterous people!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

A fundamental reason for the world’s hatred of a Christian lies in their differences

1 Peter 4:4 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you;

Romans 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, 3 but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.4

A believer, having left the kingdom of darkness and having been transferred into the kingdom of God’s Son (Col. 1:13), has a different joy, purpose, hope, and love. He now has certainty, truth, and a standard for life.

The response of the world is one, first of all, of antagonism. It’s one of envy. It’s one of jealousy. It’s one of hatred because our freedom and our joy are so real and theirs are non-existent. It’s an old story. Anybody hates somebody who’s got all the answers. And especially satanic godless men in the world hate those who give the answer when the answer is the antithesis of satanic activity, the person of Jesus Christ.

If there isn’t any antagonism in the world toward your testimony, then you don’t have a visible testimony. So they hate us first of all because we don’t belong to the system and we violate the system and we confront the system. And by a pure life, we rebuke the system. And Satan works against that.

1. The world hates us because we belong to Jesus Christ

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 keep yours also.

Previously He was referring to their need to imitate His humble service. But the principle has other applications. Christians are to identify so closely with Jesus that they share in His sufferings (they will persecute you also)[i]

And the world has always hated Jesus Christ and they have nobody to unleash that hatred on other than those of us who represent Jesus Christ. And so we get the brunt the hatred that is directed toward Christ. The unbelievers who reject Jesus Christ and hated Him and continue to hate Him without a cause, haven’t given up their hatred, they’ve just redirected it to us who represent Jesus Christ.

They hate us, because they hated our Lord Jesus... The world hates us because they hated Jesus Christ and we represent Him. You see, hate isn’t something you can store up, hate has to be vented. And the world has always hated Jesus Christ and they have nobody to unleash that hatred on other than those of us who represent Jesus Christ. And so we get the brunt of the hatred that is directed toward Christ. The unbelievers who reject Jesus Christ and hated Him and continue to hate Him without a cause, haven’t given up their hatred, they’ve just redirected it to us who represent Jesus Christ. And let me assure you that the hatred of the world is just as virile today as it was two thousand years ago. There are people all over the world dying for their faith in Jesus Christ.

Verse 20, “Remember the word that I said unto you,” and He’s referring back to chapter 13 verse 16, “the servant is not greater than his lord.” Now back there He was talking about service. Back there He was saying to them, “I’m concerned that you humbly wash each other’s feet as I have done to you and serve each other.” But here He’s using the same principle to apply to persecution and He’s saying, “You know, they persecuted Me, you don’t think that if they persecuted your Master that you’re going to get away without persecution, do you?” It identifies us with Jesus Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings.

In Philippians chapter 3 and verse 10, Paul talked about the fellowship of His sufferings. He knew what that meant.

He said, at the end of Galatians, he said, “I bear in my body the marks of Jesus Christ.” Paul’s trophy case was on his body.

If they have lain in wait for my sayings, with a design to ensnare me, they will in like manner lie in wait to entangle you in your talk.’ ’

On the positive side, some people followed and obeyed Jesus’ teaching, so they also responded to the apostles’ message.

Matthew 7, Jesus said, “Broad is the way that leads to destruction and many there be that go in there at, but narrow is the way into life everlasting and few there be that find it.”

We have to confront men with their sin openly and f rankly and expect a reaction. Sometimes they’ll receive Jesus Christ, more times than that, they’ll violently react. When you confront the world, you get a reaction. And if you’re not getting it, you’re not confronting the world.

1. The world hates us because it does not know God

21 "But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.

Here’s the real deep inner cause of all hate. It is the absence of a knowledge of God.

Man is born into the world in enmity with God. He is rebellious. He is full of hate toward God. Men don’t love God. Men don’t know God.

You say, “What about religious people?” First Corinthians 10:20 says, “What they do is sacrifice unto demons and not unto God.” False religion is demonic. Liberalism, modernism, those things that even call themselves Christianity that deny the virgin birth of Christ and the deity of Christ and the verbal inspiration of Scripture, those are not people who love God, those are people who hate God. They are under Satan’s control. Whether it’s gross kind of atheism or whether it’s superficial kind of liberal modern Christianity, they all hate God. They are at enmity with God. They are against God. They are on Satan’s side.

And to be honest with you, an individual who doesn’t worship the true God through Jesus Christ presented in the New Testament, comes out an atheist no matter what else he may worship.

The world worships the God who doesn’t exist. In Acts chapter 17, you remember Paul arrived in Athens. He stood up on Mars Hill and he said this, “Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are very religious ... very religious. For as I passed by and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN GOD whom therefore ye ignorantly worship.”

Romans 1:18-28

22 "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.

Before Jesus’ coming people might have pleaded ignorance as an excuse for sin

Acts 17:30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,

He’s talking about the sin of willful rejection when you have the total revelation. In other words, the greatest sin that a man could commit is to have all of the specifics of God’s revelation and then reject. And Jesus said, “I have come and I have spoken unto you and you have seen My life and when you have rejected Me, then you have committed the sin of total rejection with total revelation. And the cloak of your hypocrisy is ripped off, you can’t hide your sin anymore. It’s obvious. You proved it by spurning me.”

He’s talking then about the specific sin of rejecting God and willfully spurning Jesus Christ. The greatest sin possible that a man can commit in the world is the sin of rejecting God’s full revelation. When the world killed Jesus Christ, they did it in the face of revelation. God had given them the whole Old Testament. God gave them Jesus Christ. They heard what He said. They saw what He did. They watched His life and then they killed Him. And they had thus reacted to all that God could communicate with hatred, antagonism and unbelief. They rejected every single thing that God could possibly reveal to them.

This is the sin of which the writer of Hebrews speaks in a very important passage that many have misunderstood. I’ve shared it with you before, let me just give it to you again. Hebrews 6:4, “For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they shall fall away to renew them again under repentance, seeing they crucified of themselves the Son of God afresh and put Him to an open shame.”

It says right there that when somebody has been enlightened with the revelation of God, when somebody has tasted the heavenly gift, when somebody has been partaker of the Holy Spirit, seen what the Spirit of God has done, watched the energy and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come, when somebody’s had all the revelation God can give, if they fall away there’s no way they can ever be renewed again to repentance. Why? Because they had a total rejection at the point of total revelation and God can go no further than that.

Now, to give you an illustration of how this works, Matthew chapter 12. Here’s a group of people who did this very same thing, exactly what they did, they rejected totally Jesus Christ at the point of total revelation and there was no other recourse. Matthew 12:24, the Pharisees came to Jesus who had just cast out demons, they had seen His life, His miracles, heard Him speak, and they had it all. God couldn’t give these guys anymore revelation. They were students of the Old Testament. They ... everything Jesus had done He had done right in their face. Here’s their conclusion. “This fellow doth not cast out demons but by Beelzebub the prince of demons.” He’s casting out demons because He’s demon possessed. They concluded that Jesus was from hell. That was their astute conclusion after all the Old Testament and the whole life of Jesus; they said He’s out of hell.

Mt 12:31, “Wherefore I say unto you, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men.” He can forgive all sin, all blasphemy. “But the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven men and whosoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age, neither in the age to come.”

You say, “What happened here? What is the blaspheming of the Holy Spirit?” It is this, it is that Christ did everything that He did through the Spirit. The Spirit was working in Christ. He says if you have come through My life and you’ve seen me and you’ve seen all the works that the Holy Spirit has done through Me, and you have concluded that they’re of Satan, you have blasphemed the Holy Spirit. In other words, blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is attributing the works and words of Jesus to Satan ... to Satan. And He says for that you cannot be forgiven.

People who appear to be religious and appear to worship God who have not received Jesus Christ as Savior and have spurned the total complete revelation of God, don’t know God at all. They’re hypocrites and verse 22 says that this rips the cloak of hypocrisy and uncovers their sin.

If I had not spoken unto them, to court their love, they had not had sin, their opposition had not amounted to a hatred of me, and their sin had been comparatively no sin. But now that I have said so much to them to recommend myself to their best affections they have no pretense, no excuse for their sin.’ [ii]

Luke 12:47 And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating.

If we had only his sermons upon record, and not his miracles, unbelief might have pleaded want of proof; but now it has no excuse.

23 "He who hates Me hates My Father also.

He showed them they didn’t love God. They couldn’t love God and hate Him, it was impossible. They were liars. They were practical atheists. They played the religious game but they were atheists. They went into the synagogue, you know, as today they go to church, go through the motions, but they’re atheists. Men who mock Jesus don’t know God. Men who like a Jesus that’s watered down and not like the Jesus of the Word of God don’t love Him, they hate God. John 5:23, Jesus said, “He that honors not the Son, honors not the Father that sent Him.” Don’t ever be lulled for a split second into thinking that somebody can love God and not Jesus Christ.

24 "If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.

But now that the Light has come, those who willfully reject it have no excuse. The revelation in Jesus and by Jesus is so tied to the Father that to hate Jesus is to hate God (cf. John 15:24b).

Ro 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20 For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse,

25 "But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'

“This cometh to pass,” what does? Verses 22, 23 and 24, the fact that Jesus spoke enough words and did enough deeds to make them responsible. He did that so that when they hated Him, they would be hating Him without a cause.

But the nation as a whole rejected both Jesus and the Father because in their sins they loved darkness rather than light (3:19). The nation thought it was serving God in rejecting Jesus (16:2-3) but in reality it was serving Satan (8:44). Sin is basically irrational. Their hatred of Jesus was without any rational cause which also fits the pattern of hatred for righteous people, as seen in those who hated David (PS. 35:19; 69:4; 109:3).

God didn’t plan that men would hate Him. God planned that men would hate Him without reason. That’s what it says. God designed the full revelation so that if a man hates Christ, he does it without any cause at all, except his own selfish sinfulness. God gave so much revelation. God gave so much grace. God gave so much love. God made Jesus Christ so beautiful, so pure, so attractive, so magnetic, so drawing, so desirable that if a man goes on in sin, he goes on hating Jesus with no reason but his own sin. God did everything to save men, everything to keep men out of hell. And God planned that the coming of Jesus Christ would be such a perfect and complete manifestation that if men hated Jesus, they would be doing it for not cause at all, for no reason other than their own sin.

And so, if you’re going to count the cost and be a disciple of Jesus Christ, you’re going to find out that true discipleship necessitates a willingness to suffer the hatred of the world. And if you’re not willing to suffer the hatred of the world, then you’re not really willing to be the disciple that Jesus wants you to be. That’s part of it. The system still hates you.

Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. Have you trusted Him as your Savior? He can Save you if You ask Him based on His death, burial, and resurrection for your sins. Believe in Him for forgiveness of your sins today.

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“And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  -John 8:32

The world is trying to solve earthly problems that can only be solved with heavenly solutions.