Sermon Transcript
And we’re continuing our series of final lessons. Jesus is heading towards the cross. He’s spending the last precious moments with the disciples.
So if you have your Bibles open, I’m going to go ahead and read this morning the whole passage, and then we’ll get into it. If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
Remember the words I spoke to you: No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin.
Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their law: They hated me without reason.
When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.
They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this so that when the time comes, you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you. Let’s pray. Lord, what strong words coming from you, who’s otherwise so gentle, kind, and passionate.
Lord, here you are as well, but with stronger words. Lord, please help us to understand them. And I pray especially that you’d give me your Spirit as I speak these things. May they be of you. We pray in Jesus’ name.
Amen. Well, the Bible often likens the life of a Christ follower, their life of faith, to running a race. One of my favorite verses lately has been from Hebrews 12. It says, let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
I liken the life of a Christ follower to a marathon race. Any of you guys marathon runners? I know we have a few. Yeah, okay, great. That’s not something you should do this for.
You should be doing that. I mean, if you’re a marathon runner, man. But marathon runners have to prepare just incredibly hard physically. I mean, just incredible amounts of training that goes into that physically. But you know what they say is just as important for preparing physically is we need to be— is if you’re running a marathon, you need to be prepared mentally.
They actually— a number of coaches, trainers, psychologists, they’ve broken down the different segments of the 26 plus 0.2 or so mile-long marathon into a number of segments. And they say, here’s what you gotta do to prepare mentally and be ready for these mental barriers that are gonna come your way. The first few miles, okay, start out slow. That’s profound right there. But start out slow.
Make sure it’s your own pace. You’re gonna see people passing you. Just set your own pace. Don’t get caught up. The middle section, they say all these bunch of different things like Like, you gotta do things to beat back boredom.
Set little milestones along the way. One of my favorite suggestions is for the last few miles, a couple folks were saying, start talking to yourself. You need to talk to yourself. That’ll help you finish the race. You know, reach down inside and that’ll give you the power to finish the race.
The big idea here is if you’re not prepared mentally for this race that you would just think is strong a hard thing physically, if you’re not prepared also mentally, you’re gonna run into trouble along the race when things get hard because you’re gonna wanna throw it in. And chances are you’re not going to get— you’re not going to— you’re gonna lose all of which you were preparing for to get to that moment. And Jesus is saying here in this passage, Christ’s followers need to be prepared mentally. We need to be prepared spiritually to face the world. If you look at the first 2 verses here, 18 and 19, he says it baldly when he basically says, the world is going to hate you.
The world is going to detest your way of thinking, your way of living, if you’re living in such a consistent expression of my values. That’s what Jesus is saying. So you need to be prepared for opposition. So therefore, it’s incredibly important for us, for Christ followers, to understand why it is we’re going to run into opposition and what it’s going to look like. Jesus is spending these precious few moments with the disciples before he heads to the cross to explain why it is they’re going to run into opposition.
It’s important for us. Are any of you running into opposition today? Antagonism in the workplace? Maybe at home? Those of you who are students, in the classroom?
It’s important for us to be prepared mentally, spiritually, Jesus says, for when the world opposes you. And me. Okay, so the big overarching point as I see it here is you can really summarize it in 2 words, this whole passage, and that is Jesus saying, expect opposition. If you look at verse 16, verse 4, I have told you this so that when the time comes, you will remember that I warned you. Expect opposition.
Number 1, expect opposition because the world doesn’t get Jesus. Look at the first 2 verses. I’ll read them again. If the world hates you, Jesus said, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.
As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Jesus is saying, you used to belong to the world. Now you don’t because I’ve chosen you out of it. It’s as if there’s been this paradigm shift for you.
It’s as if your eyes have been opened to a new reality.
Many of you will know one of my favorite movies, The Matrix. You guys seen that? Sure, yeah, many of you guys like that. Middle schoolers love it, I guess. But The Matrix is an awesome movie.
It has this concept where all the characters discover that the world isn’t as they expected it to be, as they thought it was. It’s actually a computer-generated reality, which means the people who are walking to work in the morning, going to school, walking to church, they’re all actually projected images of themselves. And one of the most pivotal scenes happens at the beginning of that movie. You remember Neo, the main character? He’s offered 2 choices, 2 pills, right?
If he eats the blue pill, life will go back to everything as he understood it. Nothing will change. But if he eats the red pill, he’s committing himself to learning and experiencing a new life such that he will never be the same. He could never go back. And so all these characters are on that journey.
Their eyes have been opened such that they experience life in a completely new way. Jesus is saying, your eyes, when you become a follower of Christ, your eyes have been opened to the love that I have for you.
If you’re a Christ follower, we have tasted the love of Christ in such a way where we just can’t go back. And so our priorities have now become Jesus’ priorities.
And so we realign ourselves with him, but the world doesn’t get Jesus. Many of you will probably know the story of the King of Windsor. A number of years ago, he fell in love with an American woman, but the problem was, in order to marry her, he had to give up his throne. And to everybody’s astonishment, he did it. He gave up his throne.
And so, as you’d imagine, everybody was asking, Why would you have done— why did you do that? It doesn’t make sense. And his response was always the same. If you realized, if you understood how much I loved— I love her, you would have done the same thing. That’s what Jesus calls us to.
He is now our first love. He has called us out of the world such that our absolute allegiance is in him now, not in ourselves. So the world is not going to get you because the world doesn’t get Jesus. The world is not going to understand, for example, when you put God’s kingdom, advancing God’s kingdom over your career or getting a promotion or something of that effect. There was a while ago Cindy and I were going overseas to basically be missionaries, tentmaking, and we both told our companies, although my company was a church, so it wasn’t that bad of a deal.
She told her company, Gap, in the city, and so they all put together, her coworkers put on this great going away party for her. But Cindy was telling me there came a point in the conversation at this party where it got a little awkward, because the conversation completely stopped. And all of her coworkers were like looking at each other, okay, who’s going to ask her? You going to ask her? Who’s going to ask her?
And so one of the guys steps forward and he says, Cindy, look, help me understand something. You have gotten a promotion at this job every year since you started here. We all know that you’re getting ready to get a promotion in another couple of months here. Why would you give that up Why would you give up advancing your career for the sake of— and he put it this way— your husband’s line of work?
Cindy laughed when she told me. She’s like, it felt like an intervention.
Jesus is saying the world’s not going to get when you make decisions like this. If you’re making decisions not solely for your career, first and foremost for your career, your advancement, but for his priorities. The world’s not going to understand when you give, for example, 10% or more to the church. Really? The world’s not going to understand when you want to spend precious time on your weekend with the Lord.
Sunday mornings? That’s prime real estate. Good job on all you guys here. And you’re going to take a Wednesday night too? You’re kidding me.
No way. The world’s not going to understand that because it doesn’t get Jesus. And it’s not going to get our affiliation with them. So Jesus says, expect opposition. Number 2, expect opposition because the gospel is offensive.
I’m going to skip down, we’ll come back to the verses up, but look at verses 22 through 25. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.
But this is to fulfill what is written in their law: They hated me without reason. The gospel, the message of Jesus Christ, is offensive.
And I like the word offensive here because it has multiple meanings, right? I mean, in one sense, To be offensive means it ruffles our feathers, right? It angers us. It makes us upset. But the other meaning of offensive is in opposition to the word defensive.
In other words, the gospel puts people on the defensive. And if you look at the scripture here, verses 22 and 24, you’ll see that Jesus did this in 2 ways. Verse 22, Jesus spoke words and made people— and here’s the important phrase— guilty of sin. The second way he did it— so he spoke words— the second way he did it was Jesus did works, verse 24, that made people, again, guilty of sin. Now he did it in love.
If you read the gospel accounts, you see Jesus— love was his message. So he received opposition without reason, as he references in verse 25. But the gospel is offensive. Let me put it this way. How many of us in here, Christian or not Christian, like to be convicted of sin?
I mean, that’s the simple way to put it. I don’t, that’s for sure. The gospel is this in a nutshell: you need help, you can’t help yourself, Jesus alone can help you. Or to put biblical terms to it, you’re a sinner, you can’t save yourself, Jesus alone can save you. An interesting— it brings about an interesting response.
If you’re a Christ follower, that is the most wonderful news imaginable.
Infinitely gracious. The humility that God the Father would send his one and only Son for us. I mean, are you kidding me? Yes, I need help. I know I can’t help myself, and thank you, Father, for sending your Son to die for me.
Wonderful news. But think about that same gospel to the world. Their response could very easily be, that is narrow-minded bigotry. Because it is arrogant for you to suggest that A, I need help, and B, Jesus is the only way. Jesus is saying, this is going to happen.
You’re going to run into opposition. You know, I was on a short-term missions trip a couple years ago. We were in a country in East Asia where the language is not predominantly English, but we were on a campus where folks were speaking English. And so a buddy and I went out and we were sharing the gospel. We were in a— a big group of us went, but we went out in pairs.
And I can’t tell you how many times I ran into this response when I shared the gospel. That’s fine, but you believe in God, I believe in myself. I got that response, I can’t tell you how many times, verbatim. You believe in God, I believe in myself. And then we got back to the apartment at night, and everybody had gone out sharing with different people.
And it turns out other people on our team had also gotten the same response verbatim. It made me think, okay, there’s some formal training going on here in this country. It’s like, if a missionary comes up to you, here’s what you say, right? But you know what I thought was more remarkable about that response than just that happening was how incredibly accurate of a response it was, how insightful it was, how right on of a response. You believe in God.
Jesus is saying, you believe in me or you belong to the world, or you believe in yourself is what it comes down to. You think about it this way, that even— I’m not only talking Christianity as compared to secularism, This is also Christianity as different from other world religions. Virtually every other world religion says, here’s what you need to do and you’ll find salvation. Do these things. Jesus is saying, no, there is nothing that you can do on your own except trust in what I have done on your behalf.
Jesus is saying, you belong to me or you belong to the world. If you belong to me, you’re going to run into opposition because the gospel flies in the face of the world. That’s offensive. Expect opposition. Now opposition comes in a number of ways.
I imagine if we brought out a number of tables and sat around a room and listened to different Christ followers’ experiences, you’d have different stories to share of what opposition looks like in your life. You know, in preparing for this message, I just found a couple of things. One, I found in 2011, the Chronicle of Higher Education did a report on sociology— sociologists. And I know I haven’t run into anybody who’s a sociologist here, but I think it helps give a flavor of what it is opposition can look like. In this report, the formal survey, they asked American sociologists and they found out that most are less likely to hire evangelicals.
Bible-believing, born-again Christ followers. That same survey found that nearly half of these American sociologists have an outright admitted an outright prejudice towards evangelicals.
I know some of you are scientists in the room. We have a number of scientists in this area. You might be familiar with the story of the astronomer Martin Gaskell. A number of years ago, just a couple years ago actually, he was turned down a job offer at the University of Kentucky because a board member found out, as she wrote, that he was potentially evangelical.
That went to trial and all that played out. But in uncovering some more of the communications that were going on, another professor astronomer on staff wrote to the board and said, you can’t hire this guy. Are you kidding? You’ll find it’ll be, as he wrote, a public relations nightmare. Now you know what’s going on there.
It seems to me it’s quite clear. The presumption is It’s problematic to have an astronomer on our staff believe in a Creator. Now I’m not picking on University of Kentucky. I’m not. It’s just to show that we run into opposition.
Google. I love Google. Love their products. I know a number of you work there. Great company.
Great employer. But a number of years ago they came out with just this really strong package of communication tools that they made available to all nonprofits except for for religious-affiliated groups, and a couple others.
I mean, it’s interesting, the opposition that we’ll face. A lot of corporate donations, companies that you probably work for, won’t match donations to church groups. I’m not picking on these groups, but just to show that we do run into opposition. Sometimes it can be at the level of our job status. You know, it’s nothing to say about those of you who are public school teachers, I know some of you are social workers, lawyers, the different kind of oppositions that you will face.
Jesus is saying, expect opposition because the world doesn’t get me and the gospel is offensive. Now I think at this point it’s good to pause and look at 2 questions that I believe are popping out of the scripture as far as application goes. And the first one is, if you’re a Christ follower, Are you running into opposition? Because if you look at verse 19 and elsewhere in this passage, Jesus is basically implying if you’re not running into opposition, something’s off. Because if you belong to me, the world’s going to hate you.
Not all the time, not from everybody, but you’re going to run into opposition. I know from conversations with a number of you that you have close family members or maybe close friends that you care very much about, and you’ve tried your best sharing the gospel, and yet you’ve run into opposition. You’ve run into antagonism, even. We’ve been there. You know, you reach— you hear things like, it’s fine for you to believe, but don’t bring that in this household.
You believe this, but don’t bring that here.
But the problem is After years of this happening, what we can do is we can begin to let it erode and make us shrink back. Jesus is saying, expect opposition. Don’t be disheartened. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t be defeated.
It’s part of the deal. If anything, you can take from verse 19, it should be encouraging that you run into opposition. How’s that work? Well, it’s a sign, Jesus says. It’s a natural sign that we belong to him.
Are we running into opposition? The second question is, are you running into opposition for the right reason?
What’s the right reason to face opposition? I think it’s a number of places here in the Scripture if you look. Do you see it? I think verse 21 perhaps says it the most clear. They will treat you this way because of my name.
Jesus is saying, It’s because of me that you should be running into opposition. So therefore, let’s not add anything to his message, because what’s the point? I think that’s what’s going on here in verse 20. If you look at this, when Jesus says, remember the words I spoke to you, no servant is greater than his master. When we add things to the message of Jesus Christ, of which at the top is the gospel, then we’re running into opposition for reasons that we shouldn’t be.
It could be even distracting or detrimental.
You know, I think we see this in a number of ways in our society. As Christ followers, we can run into trouble in the way that we represent him. One of these areas I think is politics. Now politics is an incredibly sensitive issue, and I’m not saying Christ followers shouldn’t take a stand on certain issues. I’m not saying that at all.
God has given us the gift of democracy, so we have the responsibility as citizens to We need to steward that the best we can, but we need to do it with wisdom and care and not running into opposition for the wrong reasons. Many of you know that I went to UC Berkeley for my undergrad, and at UC Berkeley, we not only love to protest, we love to protest protests. It’s great. I remember one time I was walking through the main hall there, and there was a protest on this side And there was an anti-protest on this side. It was this big political issue, and there were a number of Christians over here.
It just became clear because one of them— a number of them had the classic signpost. You guys have all seen this: God hates murderers. And I’m just sitting there like, oh boy. And sure enough, I get to my next class and my classmates are there, all just up in arms, and say, this is why I can’t stand Christians. Because they are so filled with hate.
And I’m just sitting there like, you know, God hates murderers is not even theologically accurate. I mean, God hates sin for sure, yeah, absolutely, of which Christ followers are sinners as well.
But how— why is it that we project something like that? It’s as if we’re adding things to it. And you know, if I could take a second here, I just think there’s a lot of irony in this. I mean, think about what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. How he defined murder.
He said, if you hate your brother, it’s as if you’re murdering. And so when these Christ followers were holding up signs that were projecting hatred, is that more close to the definition? I don’t know. But what I’m saying here is we can’t add to— we need to stick to, they will treat you this way because of my name. If we’re going to run into opposition, may it be because of the name of Jesus, the things he cares about.
His gospel. The other area I think we, you know, the American church at large runs into this is on the issue of morality. I was at a Chicago White Sox game the other night. It was for my brother’s graduation. We got to go see a White Sox game.
And there was a group of guys about my age up in front of me, rowdy but having a good time. Good guys. And they got up to go at the end of the game. One guy got up to go at the end of the game, and his buddy asked him, Hey, are you going to church this weekend? And the guy hesitated a little bit and he said, you know what?
No, I’m not going because the church is filled with people who sit around and judge people all day. And then the other guy responded, he said, you know what? Yeah, I haven’t been to church in 10 years. And I’m just thinking, man, you know, I’m preaching this to myself as well. It’s just, you know, if we’re gonna— Jesus came into this world, he had every right to condemn the world.
He had every right to be— to bring righteousness, self-righteous. He had every right to bring judgment, and yet he did not. And yet how is it that when we go down the streets or you take formal surveys of folks of how they would first describe Christianity, the first thing that comes to mind is what? Hypocrites, judgmental, self-righteous.
How is it we’re not at large known for being forgiving, being loving. You know, this is something that we— you know, like I say, I speak this to myself— we need to run in— if we’re going to run into opposition, let’s make sure it’s for the right reason, for the name of Jesus. And we have to be wise in doing this, do it in love, but run into opposition for the right reason. So Jesus is saying, expect opposition because the world doesn’t get Jesus and because the gospel is offensive. Well, so what?
How does this actually play out? What does this actually mean in our lives? And I think Jesus answers that question in verses 26 and 27. He says, when the Counselor comes— now that word Counselor can also be translated helper, advocate. It’s an incredibly rich word that means the one who comes in great power alongside of you.
When he comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. There it is. We must testify about Jesus. Despite opposition, we must testify about Jesus.
The Spirit is going to be doing the heavy lifting, is what Jesus is saying. But this is a tag-team effort. We must testify. And I really think you can summarize what Jesus is saying this way. The key thought is we must testify about Jesus no matter the response.
I think that’s really the key thought here. Testify about Jesus no matter the response.
There was a pastor who was walking down a road and it was near a barn. And at a distance he saw this animal that got its head stuck in a Coca-Cola can. And the pastor said to himself, he’s like, wow, here’s a wonderful sermon illustration. Check this out. This little animal trying to get all the goodies, got its head stuck, and has no way out.
And so he thought, okay, I’m going to go over there and help this poor animal. And so he gets over there, and as he gets closer, he notices something. He notices that the small animal is actually a skunk. And so now— this pastor, by the way, is not me— but now this pastor is in a dilemma, because if he tries to help this animal, he’s almost certainly going to get sprayed. This is what Jesus is saying in a sense.
He’s saying, tighten up your belt, reach down, and try your best to remove that bucket.
This passage has really been, if I could use this word, grating on me this week. A little bit ago, I was I went down to Armadillo Willy’s here in Los Altos and had dinner. And after I ordered my food, I started up a conversation with the guy who was behind the counter. I like doing that sort of thing. And the conversation was really cool, such that I, you know, I was making a connection with this guy.
I really felt a prompting, hey, you know, I should invite this guy out to some sort of event, or, you know, at least give him my contact information, see if we can hang out and continue this conversation later. But about this time, I was feeling this prompting, the line had filled back up again and there was about 6 or so people there just about ready to order. So I needed to get going. And I was feeling these promptings and yet what I did was this: Hey, I work up the street. Nice to meet you.
Bye. And I’m walking away and I’m just thinking, you know, I know exactly why it is I didn’t follow those promptings a little stronger. And that is because I was afraid of the responses I might have gotten from those 6 people waiting in line. The weird looks, if you will, if I had made myself known as a Christ follower or just done any of that sort of thing. I didn’t even say, I’m a pastor that works up at this church.
I didn’t do any of that. And I just realized, you know, on such an incredibly small scale yet unmistakably clear, you know, I need these words to work on my heart.
Jesus is saying, expect opposition. Testify about Jesus no matter the response. And what I love about Jesus, the beauty of Jesus, is he not only calls us to this mission, but he is our great example. You remember the verse I quoted at the very beginning? Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
The rest of the passage goes on, Hebrews 12:2-3. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured— listen to this— such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. You know, here in America in the US, the opposition that we face, it’s there, but it’s not as strong as it is in some parts of the world. Look at chapter 16, verse 2.
They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. I think on that spectrum of things, here in America, we’re more towards the, you know, getting kicked out of the synagogue side of things. I mean, what do we usually run into? It’s more like being dissociated, dissociation, and things of that matter.
I know some of you, relationships have been cut off. That’s incredibly difficult. Some of you run into it affects your job status and things of that like. That’s not to say it’s not important. It’s incredibly important, but it’s different because it actually pales in comparison to what millions of Christians around the world are facing today, and that is their lives are at stake for being a follower of Christ.
But here’s the thing, whether you’re in our situation facing the opposition that you and I face today, or you’re like one of the millions of people around the world, what they face, all of that pales in comparison to what Jesus our Savior faced for us. Nothing compares. When he took on our sin, bore all of God’s wrath in our place, nothing compares.
And he did it— listen again to this— for the joy set before him. Jesus had the bigger picture in mind. He knew, he says in verse 20, if they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. But if they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. Some will come to faith.
You think about any story of a person who’s a Christ follower in this room. One of the most amazing verses is, while we were still sinners, while we are God’s enemies, Christ died for us.
Jesus came into the world to face the most horrible of opposition for the sake of you and me to be Christ followers. And he’s calling us to the same task, to testify about him no matter the response. And what’s amazing about Jesus, to go a little bit further, is he did it when all others abandoned him. You think about the disciples. They hightailed it there.
I mean, they were denying Him that night. They were just— it was bad. Even God the Father forsook Him on the cross. That’s what was happening when Jesus said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because God the Father, when He poured out His wrath on Jesus, had to turn away.
And so Jesus came on this mission to testify no matter the response, even when all others abandoned Him. And yet when he calls us to this mission, he comes alongside us. He goes with us. He gives us the Advocate, the Helper, the Counselor, the Spirit of Truth, who in great power comes alongside us and will do the heavy lifting. Our job is— he wants to partner with you.
He wants to partner with me such that we would testify about him even if we— even in the face of opposition. We must testify. You know, the Bible talks about Christ’s followers as salt of the world. Salt is a preserving agent, of course. It’s also a seasoning.
It enhances flavor and all that. But you know what also happens with salt from time to time is when it’s placed into a wound to bring healing, it can sting. Jesus is calling us to testify about him. No matter the response. And do you see how, by the way, that Jesus flips on its head opposition or hatred?
So we are not to— we are to love people even when we are opposed, because it’s this way that they will come and they’ll be drawn to him. You know, for those of you who have family members, close family members or close friends who you’ve run into antagonism with, you know, I would just encourage you with Cindy’s dad. He, for 30 years— he is now a Christ follower, praise God— for 30 years, he tells it this way, he held off God at arm’s length. He just would have nothing to do with it, such that when Cindy would share the gospel with him, he would just say, you know what? Don’t talk to me about religion.
And so Cindy would just, you know, pray her head off her brother, just try to figure out ways to gently bring up the gospel. Gospel, even in times she would live her life, her priorities for God, even in times where she actually ran into disagreement with her parents. For example, one time she wanted to spend time overseas, and they just disagreed with that. No, it’s going to put your career too much on hold. This is an important time to be developing in that area.
And, you know, in honoring them, still loving them, but keeping true to her first love, her allegiance to God and Jesus, she worked out, she said, you know, I’m going to go.
And little by little, after all these years, he began to open up his heart. The Spirit was working on him, and he became a Christ follower.
The life of a Christ follower is a marathon race. It really is, as I see it, because we need— Jesus is saying you need to be prepared mentally, spiritually for the opposition that’s coming, for the times that’s going to be hard. You have to be prepared.
We have to testify about him no matter the response. And I just think this is such a helpful yet hard message for me personally, perhaps for many of you, because we speak this in the Bay Area. Could you imagine if we embraced opposition a little bit more, testified about Jesus no matter the response in the Bay Area? And the Bay Area is not typically known for being very high on thinking of Christianity. They’re running into a lot of opposition, but raising him up, lifting him up, surfacing as believers, not trying necessarily to out-argue people, but by conveying the supernatural love that Christ himself conveyed to us and gave us.
When he came and we believed in him. That’s our task. What a wonderful thing, not seeking opposition for the sake of opposition. Jesus never did that. But in humility, with confidence, and in joy, making the word known in both word and action, in our deeds.
May we testify about Jesus no matter the response. Let’s pray.
Lord, first— well, first of all, I think if there are some of you that are perhaps here and I’ve shared the gospel with you and you might be drawn to Jesus, you know, I share the gospel pretty bluntly. You need help, can’t help yourself, Jesus is the way. And your response might be, I want that. I need that. And what Jesus is basically saying in this scripture is that’s not a response of the world, but that’s a response of him drawing to you.
That’s the Spirit of Truth making things clear to you. And if that’s you this morning, I want to give you an opportunity to receive the gift of grace, eternal life in Jesus’ name. And if you’d do that, you can do that in your seat where you are silently by saying, Lord, I need you. I can’t save myself. Be my Savior.
And then, Lord, we pray that for the rest of us, you know, as Christ followers, Lord, it’s so easy to shrink back, to be discouraged, dismayed, even defeated when we run into opposition for our faith. But, Lord, we don’t want that. We want to testify about you no matter the response. In such a way that is similar to how you came and you saved us while we were still sinners, while we were still your enemies. Because Lord, our heart, our priorities and our heart is your heart and your priorities, and we know that you love the world, for you loved the world.
So please help us individually, in our workplaces, at home, in our classes, but also as a church. Testify about you. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
At this time, we’re going to be taking this more. We’re going to be taking communion.
