Sermon by Pastor Brent Kompelien
November 12, 2023
INTRO
Good morning. I’m glad to be back, and to jump into the gospel of John again with you.
ILLUST — On September 26, 1991, Biosphere 2 opened in the Arizona desert. (SLIDE 2) This 3 acre structure became the world’s largest closed ecosystem, with multiple buildings covered in 6,500 windows!
This research facility was built to prove that it is possible replicate the earth’s ecological systems artificially so that future colonies could be built on the moon or other planets.
But attempting to replicate the complexity of creation artificially has revealed that there aren’t short-cuts to creating something as dynamic as an ecosystem.
Trees are a perfect example. Terry Szymanski share this with me. Trees in Biosphere 2 grow more quickly than in a regular forest, but what the researchers found is that the trees within this artificial environment repeatedly fell over or had major branches break off before they grew to full maturity. Why would this happen?
Here’s why: There’s no wind in Biosphere 2. There are no storms, no windy days, no snow load in the winter, and no adverse conditions to make the tree grow strong and resilient.
You see, trees need adversity in order to develop stress fibers in the wood and hard shells in the bark. They also need to be pushed and tugged by the wind in order to grow deep roots that keep the tree grounded and upright.
You’d expect that a tree would survive longer and be healthier without the dangers of storms and the stresses of a dynamic environment. But it is just the opposite. The resilience of a tree comes only when it is tested.
The same goes for a grape vine. Sarah and I used to live near Napa Valley, and vineyards are almost always planted on hillsides and in conditions that stress the vine. When they are pruned properly and stressed by the terrain and weather, grape vines grow incredibly delicious fruit!
(SLIDE 3, title) Last week we heard from John 15 where Jesus said that he is the True Vine, and that we are the branches. It is the distinct privilege of the branches to bear fruit, and Jesus said that we can only bear fruit when we are connected to Him, and that the fruit of our lives is for the Father’s glory.
So let me ask you a question: What are your expectations as a Christian? What is this life of faith all about? What should we expect when we walk in obedience to Jesus in this world that is so often set against God?
Maybe I’ll say it another way: Do you desire that the Christian life be comfortable and easy? Do you want a Biosphere 2 kind of experience, protected from the wind and the waves of trials and challenges?
Or can you come to realize that God has placed you in a hostile and stormy world for a purpose: That you would grow stronger in your faith and more dependent on your connection to the True Vine, Jesus Christ.
IMPORTANT: God cares more about your maturity than your comfort.
So I’ll ask again: What are your expectations? This is the very question Jesus asks his disciples in the Upper Room on the evening before he goes to die on the cross.
They had expected that if Jesus is the Messiah that they were going to take care of business and get rid of the Romans! They had expected that they would earn positions of authority. They even arguing about who was going to sit at Jesus’ right hand. They thought they were going to have the easy life, basking in the afterglow of a victory over their enemies.
Yet this is what Jesus says to them: Check your expectations. In order for you to be fruitful for the Father’s glory, you are going to follow in my footsteps. If you are abiding in me, don’t be surprised when they treat you like they treated me.
Open to John 15:18-25. Let’s listen to how Jesus changes his disciples’ expectations on the eve of his crucifixion, helping them understand what living in this world will be like when they belong to a different Kingdom. READ John 15:18-25.
ORG SENT — There are three important lessons from this passage that help us understand what it is like to follow Jesus in a hostile world. In verses 18-19 we learn how to interpret our relationship to the world. In verse 20 we learn how to set our expectations in the world. In verses 21-25 we learn how to understand the errors of the world.
MAIN 1 — Interpreting our Relationship to the World (vv. 18-19). (SLIDE 4a)
Go back to verse 18. Jesus doesn’t pull any punches here. He says right at the start that the world “hates” him and his disciples. Hate? Really!? This is a strong word.
Friends, we need to understand something about the Bible. The Scriptures don’t leave a lot of room for indifference or apathy. There is no biblical category for being “meh” about Jesus.
You are either in the world or not of this world. You are either in the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light. You are either lost or you are found. You are either dead or alive. The Bible is so clear: You can’t be neutral about Jesus! (SLIDE 4b)
ILLUST — New Testament scholar Don Carson says that Jesus’ words here in John 15 demand a decision (SLIDE 4c). Following Jesus means you need to lay down your life. Not following him means you are siding with a lost and hateful world that is opposed to Jesus. Don Carson says that this is a sobering reality that has two effects:
(SLIDE 4d) It challenges those who want easy faith.
(SLIDE 4e) It fosters true faith in those who are willing to be sifted and purified for God’s glory.
This is why Jesus says in Luke 9:23-24, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.”
You see, Jesus wants us to accurately interpret our relationship to the world. You don’t belong here! (SLIDE 4f) As Jesus says in v. 19, “You do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” He has plucked us out of darkness! In the gospel, Jesus has reached out and saved us, purely by grace, when we were lost and dead in our sin. We now belong to him!
If you truly follow Jesus, the True King of the Heavenly Kingdom, you will increasingly find yourself at odds with the kingdoms of this world and with people who don’t know Christ. You’ll find that you don’t desire the same things, you don’t view life from the same perspective, you don’t allocate your time and energy toward the same pursuit, and you aren’t swayed by the same anxieties and fears. Rather, you find yourself walking in a new light, with a renewed joy, and with real hope.
In other words, when you delight in Christ and when you walk in faithfulness to Him and his Word, you become like the person pictured in Psalm 1: Like a tree that has grown strong and resilient, drawing on the Living Water himself, yielding fruit in season, and you find yourself as one whose leaves do not wither!
In light of the fact that we belong to Christ and His Kingdom, what should our expectations be as Jesus’ disciples?
MAIN 2 — Setting Our Expectations in the World (v. 20). (SLIDE 5a)
Look at verse 20 again. Jesus quotes himself here. He refers back to just a few moments before when he washed his disciples’ feet in John 13:16. He re-asserts the expectations he has of his followers: That we would do as he has done, loving sacrificially and humbly serving.
But if we speak and act like Jesus, shouldn’t we expect to be treated like Jesus? (SLIDE 5b)
Hold on…Jesus was beaten, he was mocked, he was arrested, he was falsely accused, he was spit upon, he was given a crown of thorns, and he was nailed to a plank of wood and lifted into the air so that he would suffocate to death.
You want to talk about persecution! Jesus didn’t get his tax status taken away, they killed him!
Don’t miss this: Jesus looks at his disciples and says, “Do you think you deserve better than me?”
Now, let’s be honest. Jesus isn’t saying that following him means we will automatically encounter such brutal treatment…but it might. What do you make of that? There are Christians today who are beaten for their faith in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and other places where following Christ is viewed as treason to your family or nation.
APPLY: We enjoy such incredible privileges in our country. Yet we are entering an era where being a Christian no longer gets you any social capital. Rather, being a Christian today will cost you something in the public square. (SLIDE 5c) What are you going to make of that?
Are you going to pine for a time when being a Christian was culturally acceptable and socially advantageous and many people didn’t really take their faith seriously because it didn’t really cost you anything?
Or are you going to see our era as a time of sifting in the church and in your life? I’ll tell you this: I’d rather be a pastor in an era of a sifted church than a cultural church.
I long for us to be a church that says, “Lord, make us like Christ, even if that means you need to throw us into the crucible so that you can refine us with fire and melt away the dross of our idols and selfishness and sin!”
You see, ultimately we need to understand that the reason we will be treated like Jesus is that this hostile world doesn’t know him.
MAIN 3 — Understanding the Errors of the World (vv. 21-25). (SLIDE 6a)
Here’s what we need to recognize: Jesus is the dividing line of history. He is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises. He is the Lord of all creation. As Paul says in Colossians 1:17, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Jesus has already said in the Upper Room in John 14:6-7: (SLIDE 6b) “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
KEY: (SLIDE 6c) The exclusivity of Christ is the dividing line. The Scripture says, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (1 Cor. 1:18)
Jesus makes this reality so clear as he sets the expectations of his followers. Don’t underestimate this: (SLIDE 7a) When you follow Jesus, you become an ambassador in your generation of the True King and His Kingdom. As the Body of Christ, when we form a gospel-centered, Kingdom-minded community of faith as a contrast to this world, we become the visible expression, the living witnesses of the dividing line of history himself, Jesus. (SLIDE 7b) KEY: How the world reacts to us, the Body of Christ, reveals whether they live in truth or error.
I want you to notice two parallel sets of phrases here that Jesus uses on purpose to define how he is the dividing line: READ vv. 22-24.
These parallel phrases have to do with Jesus’ words (vv. 22-23) and works (v. 24). (SLIDE 7c) What he has said and done confirms that He is the only way. I want to focus for a moment especially on the words. There is an image in the Bible that helps us understand that the words of the Messiah are a dividing line.
(SLIDE 8a) Isaiah 11 — A prophecy about the Messiah, the shoot from the stump of Jesse, whom the Spirit of the Lord will rest upon, and who will judge with righteousness. Isaiah 11:4 says, “He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.”
(SLIDE 8b) Isaiah 49 — Another Messianic prophecy about the Servant of the Lord who will come to bring the light of salvation to the ends of the earth and whose mouth is like a sharpened sword (v. 2).
(SLIDE 8c) Revelation 1:16 and 19:15 — The Apostle John has a vision of Jesus, and he describes Jesus as having a sharp double-edged sword coming out of his mouth with which to strike down the nations.
KEY — This image of the sword coming out of the mouth of the Messiah is a metaphor that his words are the standard by which everything is judged. (SLIDE 8d) His words are the dividing line, the ultimate source of truth, and the perfect Word from God.
APPLY: This is why John says in v. 22 that there is now no excuse…the supreme revelation of God has come in the person of Jesus Christ. In other words, when you encounter the words and works of Jesus, you can’t be neutral, you can’t claim ignorance, you can’t just be “meh” about him. Our text today is so clear: How you respond to Jesus reveals whether you love or hate the Father.
APPLY
(SLIDE 9, blank) I want to end with an encouragement. Again, this passage is all about setting our expectations as followers of Jesus. Jesus’ intention here is not to make us angry with the world, or to return hate to the world, or to entrench ourselves against the world.
In the context of the Upper Room, Jesus’ command is to display such a radical love for one another and a compassionate, yet firm, response to the world as we recognize that so many people around us desperately need Jesus.
It should break our hearts that so people don’t know the real hope and joy and peace that is offered in the free gift of forgiveness and redemption through Christ.
And yet Jesus doesn’t sugar-coat our presence in the world. Even as we live with sacrificial love and compassion toward others, even as we stand for what is good and true, even as we aim to walk in faith together as a church family, we will encounter opposition, we may be mocked, we may find ourselves at odds with our friends and neighbors and co-workers, and we may find that people hate us because we are Christians.
This may seem unjust, just as Jesus says in verse 25: “They hated me without reason.” But friends, remember this…(SLIDE 10a) you are being treated like your Savior Jesus.
I think of the Apostles when they were dragged before the Sanhedrin and put on trial for being witnesses to the words and works of Jesus. Acts 5:40-41 says, (SLIDE 10b) “They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”
ILLUST — Many of you know I served as a church planter in San Francisco for 5 years. There were times when I experienced overt persecution for my faith. And during many of the struggles of that time, the Lord reminded me to rejoice that I would be counted worthy of suffering disgrace for Jesus.
I have a wall in my office that I call my wall of suffering. I have taped passages of Scripture, poems, song lyrics, and other words of encouragement that the Lord used during times of difficulty.
One such poem is by one of my teachers, New Testament scholar Don Carson. He wrote a poem that was inspired by our passage this morning from John 15. READ Carson poem.
I told the folk I cherished
how my sins had been forgiven,
How Jesus changed my outlook,
took my guilt, and gave me heaven.
They thought I’d lost my senses,
turned fanatic, lost my reason.
They charged me with betrayal,
with a vicious kind of treason.
And I wondered why salvation
should cause me so much pain.
If they persecuted me,
they will persecute you –
For the slave is not above the Lord he serves.
My assignment was the cross;
you my slave will bear some loss:
My disciple takes his cross and daily nerves his heart and mind to follow me.
Then soon I learned my brothers
and my sisters in the Savior
So often shine in suffering
with astonishing behavior,
Adorn the blessed gospel
with forbearing perseverance,
Forgive their cruel tormentors
with a graceful, firm endurance.
Still I wondered why salvation
should cause them so much pain.
If they persecuted me,
they will persecute you –
For the slave is not above the Lord he serves.
My assignment was the cross;
you my slave will bear some loss:
My disciple takes his cross and daily nerves his heart and mind to follow me.
What alien perspectives
I’ve pursued with willful blindness.
For apostolic servants
would rejoice at God’s great kindness
In reckoning them worthy
to take on a little battering;
They longed to know Christ’s power
and the fellowship of suffering.
For they understood their calling
to trust and suffer pain.
If they persecuted me,
they will persecute you –
For the slave is not above the Lord he serves.
My assignment was the cross;
you my slave will bear some loss:
My disciple takes his cross and daily nerves his heart and mind to follow me.