East Baptist Church – Denison, TX

Jesus Gives A Reality Check

John 15:18-21

It never stops to amaze me when Christians think that coming to Christ is a channel to an easy and comfortable life. In the Scripture we are about to read, our Lord tells His followers what to expect as His people and even more so if we are going to live Christ-Like.

One of the emotions that override all others is healthy love. If we are going to be all the Lord can make us as His Body, the church we have to put love for each other ahead of love for self. 

It is a fact that one of the biggest reasons the world hates the church is that it gives a healthy alternative to all the sick places the world offers for us to belong where we are accepted.  

Let us start with our last verse in order to get the key understanding before us this Lord’s Day. We miss the main reason the flesh and the world hates Christians and the church; a hate that is so hot it pursues us in hopes of stopping the Gospel. It is because they do not know God the Father that sent His only begotten Son. ²¹“But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.”

As we talked about in our introduction the Lord spent a lot of time on love, now we see the warning on HATRED: the word is used seven times in the verses. 

That hate is often most hurtful when it comes from false religions of the world. Look at the fact that it was the religious leaders of the day, the Jewish leaders, that were jealous and felt threatened.  Can you not almost hear the cries to “Crucify Him” as the religious leaders use hate to anger the crowd and call for the death of God coming to save them.  

It seems that some of the most hurtful hate comes from folks in the church that are supposed to be part of the same Body. We can disagree in a loving way and not tear the Body of Christ apart to get our own way. We have to love each other in the Body even when we disagree. 

When we read the Acts of the Apostles, we find that the church and thus the people that are the church suffered great hatred at the hands of the world. It seems that much of the hate is because the world hates to be reminded that sin is sin.