The World Hates You
John 15:18-21 MKJV If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. (19) If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (20) Remember the word that I said to you, The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept My saying, they will also keep yours. (21) But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.
Jesus quickly moved from love to hate. An experienced Bible student can see the long pause Jesus took between His explanation of love and the commandments, leaving slavery to the world that hates you. Jesus often paused to give time for His disciples to think. To reflect upon scripture and lessons He referred to. Jesus often used lessons designed to make them think about previous lessons. We don’t have to rely on memory, we can page back a few verse or chapters to look at what was recorded. “The world can’t hate you, but it does hate me because I accuse it of doing evil.” (John 7:7 NLTse). Looking back, we can see why the world hated Jesus.
When Jesus used the word know, He sent us back in John’s book. A simple search using the word hate can quickly locates the proper texts. It’s not that difficult. It only takes a little time, and we’ve been given the tools to do the work. “If you abide in Me, and My Words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done to you. ” I hope your beginning to understand now.”
Talking about hatred, I can tell you, it’s on it’s way. You can’t avoid it. As soon as you study the Bible on your own, you’ll find all kinds of people exhibiting all kinds of hatred. The Bible turns some people off. There are people who’ll oppose you because they see something in you they don’t have. Look back at the previous chapters to see how people opposed Jesus. Why? It’s evident they didn’t understand what He was talking about. It’s just as evident, they refused to look at scripture Jesus pointed them to. What can you do about it? You can look at those stories to see what Jesus did. Nothing. He kept right on teaching. He repeated Himself a lot. That didn’t help. So He continued teaching what God’s Spirit told Him to teach.
If you follow the rules, keep your mouth shut, produce sour grapes like the rest of the world, they’ll love you. As long as you fit in and conform to the world, they’ll love you with the temporary worldly love they know. The kind of love that will one day be less than smoke.
Jesus repeated the word remember. He’s making it clear we need to look back. Back at what? What He taught. Since all we have is scripture, that is what Jesus is pointing to. We have to remember we’re no longer slaves ,so remember we’ve not part of this world. We wouldn’t want to be once we see how they persecute us.
Jesus also told us He wanted us to feel His joy. That joy consists of comfort. Jesus reminded us, they wouldn’t listen to Him. If we look back a few chapters, we see examples John recorded. We can’t expect to have much better luck than Jesus had, or more success. We have to be comfortable in the fact, we are just like Jesus when we fail, if we take it with the same attitude. We can’t be upset or vengeful like the world. Those branches should be trimmed off.
