I don’t care who you are; you might be the most honest and trusting person in the world, but I will guarantee you that you will never enter into an agreement with someone before knowing what is expected of you. Before starting a new job, you find out what your responsibilities are and how much you will be compensated. Before getting married, the couple discusses what ideas they have for their life together and makes sure that they are compatible; do they move, do they have kids, are they both going to work? Before we even make a simple purchase, we test things out to make sure that we know exactly what we’re getting. We smell fruit, try on clothes, check expiration dates, read customer reviews, and the list goes on and on. The bottom line is that we like to have an idea of what we are getting into before we ever commit to something, no matter how small the commitment. We don’t want to sign up for something and then be told what it’s all about or how much it’s going to cost us after we have committed to it. Well, our text today is exactly that for the Christian faith. Jesus is preparing to leave his disciples, and he tells them (and us too) exactly what being a Christian will mean. He lets us know the cost of discipleship.
Jesus begins telling his disciples about the cost of discipleship by recapping several things that we have looked at over the past few months and even reciting some passages again. He speaks of the love that he has for us. No, this isn’t just any kind of love. This isn’t the love that we may have for our favorite vacation spot. This isn’t even the kind of love that we may have for our spouse. This love is even greater than the love that I felt a little over a week ago when I looked into my son’s eyes for the first time. This love is the kind of love that exists between the Father and the Son. In the Greek text, there are several words that translate to the English word love. All of them carry with them different degrees of love, and this word here (agape) is used to define the love between the Father and the Son, the greatest love there is. There is no kind of love that can compare to this love, and that is the love that Jesus has for his children. In fact, he is going to show us how great his agape is for us by laying down his own life for our sake. Jesus is soon to lay down his life as a once-for-all sacrifice to save us from our sins. Our Savior is going to bear the punishment that should fall upon each one of us, and he is going to do so not out of some obligation or agreement, but solely because he loves us that much.
Jesus then goes on to speak of how the relationship between he and the disciples is moving from servant to friend. Now, I want to clarify something here in saying that this statement does not abolish the servant nature of our relationship with Christ. Both the disciples and all other followers of Christ remain servants, but we are friends or allies as well in the sense that there is nothing withheld from us. Yes, we may not know how everything is going to work out in terms of the details, but we do know, to borrow the words of Romans 8:28, “that all things work together for the good of those who love God.” We don’t know the details, but we know how it is all going to work out. And not only that, but we know how it is all going to end because of the words of the book of Revelation. And we know all that has been done by God from the words of the books of the Old Testament. Throughout Christ’s life, he has been telling the disciples not only how they are to live at that moment, but he has been telling them how they are to live after his time on earth as well. There is nothing that Jesus has been told by the Father that he has not relayed to the disciples and thus onto us. Whether or not that information has been understood properly and fully is a whole other discussion entirely. You see, a master does not confide in his servants. He does not reveal all to his servants, but he does to his friends. Just because God has revealed all to us, that does not relieve us of our service to Him, but it strengthens the bond that exists between us and our Creator.
Several weeks ago, we looked at a text in which our ultimate theme was that Christ was leaving a legacy of peace, a peace between man and God that had not existed for quite some time. Now, beginning in verse 18, we’re told of another legacy that Christ is leaving. This legacy, however, has to do with Christ’s followers as they relate to the world. Jesus says, “If the world hates 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.”
I was raised in what many would consider to be a small town in Mississippi. Meridian is very similar in size to Houma, LA. Being a small town in the Bible belt I didn’t really know many non-Christians growing up. I knew plenty of folks who didn’t go to church, but almost all of them had a church membership somewhere. You know, a place to go on Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday. As we all got older and graduated and many of us, like myself, moved away, we were all exposed to different things. Some of us went off to college, some overseas, some into military service, and some went straight into the workforce. Living in today’s world with social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter have provided a means by which childhood friends could stay connected from half a world away. Recently, one of my good friends for many years growing up wrote something about people who base their system of beliefs on a book of fairy tales about a man being swallow by fish and spit out whole, food falling from the sky, and a snake tricking someone into eating poisoned fruit, being ignorant and not capable of having rational, meaningful conversations about social issues. Well, I might be tempted to say the same thing about those who call such book a fairy tale. And this hurt, because this was coming from someone who I admire as a member of our military and someone who I considered to be a pretty standup guy. However, this is just the way that it is, and it’s the central point of these verses. That point is that the world is against Christians. We see it everywhere we look. Many folks think that they have outgrown Christianity. It’s not a new problem today; there are numerous instances of people thinking that mankind is the ultimate knowledge all the way back to the time of the great philosophers: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Many in the world have and do think that once we are able to cast aside religion and faith, that that is the ultimate level of intelligence or enlightenment of an individual. I have seen many people praise others for being able to see past the “ignorance of Christianity” and see what is really going on and what is really important. I cry and hurt for those who make such statements. I cry and hurt especially for those who I love who think and say such things. I cry and hurt because I know that unless God, in His ultimate plan, has chosen to call them to Himself somewhere down the road, I know what their eternal fate is. Quite honestly, it scares me to think about those I love spending eternity is such a way.
Christ is making it very plain here that those who follow him are going to be persecuted. He says, “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” The world was against God before the time of Christ and it has continued such a trend since that point in time, and it will continue along that path until Christ comes again and all of the events of the book of Revelation are fulfilled. But we must remember that Christ also told the disciples here, “If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.” In other words, there are those that I have chosen who will follow me. There are those, even though the world itself is against you, who will join you in following me. That is why we still bear witness about him to the world around us. That is why we do not abandon all hope that those around us who do not know Christ fall into the “not yet” category instead of being counted as eternally lost.
Jesus even tells us why the world will treat us so harshly. He says that those who seek to crush us do so “because they do not know him who sent me.” If Christ hadn’t come and told them of their sin, then they wouldn’t have known their guilt. If he had not come and done the works that he did, then they wouldn’t have known their guilt. However, Christ has come. He has spoken to the world and he has performed his works before them and yet the world still has rejected Him. However, the world has no excuse for rejecting the Savior, and in turn rejecting the Father. The world has, in the words of Christ here, “hated me without a cause.”
I don’t know how everyone in this sanctuary came to know the Lord. I don’t know if you have known Him since you were a child or if you were confronted later on in life. I don’t know what you’ve been told about being a Christian thus far in your walk with Christ, but I know what we’re told here in our text this morning. There’s pain, there’s persecution, there’s hatred towards Christians when we look at the world around us. The world is not an easy place for Christians. In fact, it’s an easier place for those who are opposed to Christ. What hope do we have of making it in this world that seeks nothing but our demise? “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.” The Holy Spirit will both testify of Jesus and empower us to testify of Him in the face of the world’s hatred, hostility, and persecution. This promise has been fulfilled for 2000 years, and it continues to be fulfilled as Christians around the world bear witness about Christ to this very day, some of them even unto death. The world may be against us, but God is for us and he has given his Holy Spirit to us. And when I hear it that way, I like our chances. Glory be to God; in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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