Sermon Tone Analysis

\\ /Scripture: John 15:18-27/

/ /

/18 //“If the world hates you, keep in mind that *it* hated me first.

19 *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.*

20 Remember the words I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’a

*If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.*

If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.

22* **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.

23 He who hates me hates my Father as well.

*24 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.

25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’b

26 “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.

27 And *you also must testify*, for you have been with me from the beginning.

/[1]

 

In John 15 Jesus issues a warning to his disciples to prepare them for spiritual living in a hostile environment.

Characteristically, he did not want them to have false ideas of what it was going to be like for them in the days following His death, resurrection and then his departure from planet earth.

I remember my dad preparing me for a trip to the doctor.

I don’t remember what misfortune that I had – just that he was trying to tell me exactly what I was going to face.

It is mostly the unknown that we fear.

And those fears grow larger the longer they remain shadowed.

How many times have we feared some event only to discover that it was not nearly as bad as we had imagined.

So nothing prepares us for the future like truth.

As hard as it may be to hear at a given time, we are better off knowing.

And so he told them:

 

·         I was “*first*” hated by the “*world*”.

·         You don’t belong and you never will.

·         You belong to me and that’s why you’re hated.

·         The *world* is “guilty” because of the knowledge of God they have been given.

·         Guilty people look for someone else to blame.

·         You have to perpetuate the message of my life.

This truth remains to this day.

We are charged with the same responsibility and subject to the same consequences as we take His name and follow His teachings.

By the “*world*” Jesus did not mean people, especially irreligious people.

He was a dear friend to sinners and was loved by them.

He was hated by those who felt that they were too good to associate with this type of person.

*/He means something quite different by “the world”./*

*WORLD*.

The Gk. word */kosmos/* means by derivation ‘the */ordered// world’/*.

It is, however, an axiom of the Bible that this world of human beings, the climax of the divine creation, *the world that God made* especially to reflect his glory*, is now in rebellion against him*.

Through the transgression of one man, sin has entered into it (Rom.

5:18) with universal consequences.

It has become, as a result, a */disordered/ world in the grip of the evil one* (1 Jn. 5:19).

And so, very frequently in the NT, and particularly in the Johannine writings, the word /kosmos/ has a */sinister significance/*.

It is not the world as God intended it to be, but ‘/this/ world’ set over against God, following its own wisdom and living by the light of its own reason (1 Cor.

1:21), not recognizing the Source of all true life and illumination (Jn.

1:10).

The two dominant characteristics of ‘/this/ world’ are */pride/*, born of man’s failure to accept his creaturely estate and his dependence on the Creator, which leads him to act as though he were the lord and giver of life; and */covetousness/*, which causes him to desire and possess all that is attractive to his physical senses (1 Jn. 2:16).

And, as man tends in effect to worship what he covets, such covetousness is idolatry (Col.

3:5).

*Accordingly, worldliness is the enthronement of something other than God as the supreme object of man’s interests and affections.*

Pleasures and occupations, not necessarily wrong in themselves, become so when an all-absorbing attention is paid to them.

*‘/This/ world’ is pervaded by a spirit of its own*, which has to be *exorcized by the Spirit of God*, if it is not to remain in control over human reason and understanding (1 Cor.

2:12).

*/Legalism, asceticism and ritualism are this world’s feeble and enfeebling substitutes for true religion /*(Gal.

4:9–10); and only a true knowledge of God as revealed by Christ can prevent men from relying upon them.

It was because the Jews relied upon them that they did not recognize either the Christ in the days of his flesh (Jn.

1:11) or his followers (1 Jn. 3:1).

Similarly, false prophets who advocate such things, or antichrists who are antinomian in their teaching, will always be listened to by those who belong to this world (1 Jn. 4:5).

[2]

 

And it was of this sinister, pervasive system that Jesus warned his disciples.

It is pervasive because it is not isolated beyond the walls of the church.

/“The ship’s place is in the sea, but God pity the ship when the sea gets into it.

The Christian’s place is in the world, but God pity the Christian if the world gets into him.”/

It is the spirit of anti-Christ in people who are opposed to the things of God and militantly come against Him.

It is the tepid spirit of those who are casual about their faith and unchanged and unmoved spiritually.

It is the self-righteous, legalistic spirit that makes a person believe that it is their personal responsibility to measure others by the standards that they fail to adhere to themselves.

It is not people who are the enemies that we face today but this same system.

/10 //Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

11 Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

12 *For our struggle is not against flesh and blood*, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

/

/*[3]*// Ephesians 6:10-12 (NIV)/

 

This system wants to reject the church of Christ and all those who call themselves His disciples, from its territory.

And it rears its ugly head in the most unexpected places.

It can take a political idea or entity or agenda, a political system, and set itself against the church.

It can take a pseudo saint enamored with his or her own righteousness and use that person to stir division in the church over the most minor issues.

It can be a godless system of thought that honors itself in the halls of academia and spurns the simplistic ideas of faith and truth and redemption.

/28 //Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.

29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity.

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice.

They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

/

/*[4]*// Romans 1:28-32 (NIV)/

 

This “sinister system” is the enemy of the church of Christ and because it represents the “disorder” of things it can make this planet into an unfriendly place for a Christian.

Let’s look at a few reasons then that as a Christ-follower, you are not welcome on Planet Earth.

*1.

**You stink.

*

/ /

/15 //For we are to God the *aroma of Christ* among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.

16 To the one we are the *smell of death*; to the other, the *fragrance of life*.

And who is equal to such a task?

*[5]* (2 Cor.

2:15)/

 

*/Reminding people of their mortality./*

* *

*Our existence reminds people of their broken relationship with God and the gamble that they take with their lives on a daily basis*.

They are haunted by the fear of death and the account that they must give to God.

People do not want to be reminded of their own mortality.

You are not welcome because you don’t smell good.

To God? – the scripture tells us that you are the aroma of Christ.

You have this aroma all about you.

I remember the days when I was falling in love with my first wife.

She had a perfume that she wore and I loved it.

It was on her clothing and the smell made me think of her and how much I loved her.

The smell of Christ is all over you brother and sister and you are a joy to God himself because you belong to Him.

To those being saved - the */fragrance of life/* and to those who are perishing - the */smell of death/*.