John 15 18 thru 16 4

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“You Will Testify,” John 15:18 – 16:4 (April 24, 2016) [J.D.: prior to pastoral prayer, remember to mention Wednesday night’s meeting, emphasize attendance, food, child care, and change to constitution – it’s on the website] 18

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’ 26

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. PRAY Four times in John 14-16 we read about the Paraclete. We studied this word in depth three weeks ago. It’s a hard word to translate. The ESV translates this Greek word as “Helper,” and other translations use “Counselor” or “Comforter” or “Friend.” But the word refers to the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and we’re taking four Sundays this spring to study the four times John mentions him in this part of his gospel. I’d never noticed this before I started studying this passage over the last several weeks, but each time John brings up the Paraclete he does so to emphasize a different aspect of his work in the lives of Christians. And in our text for today John says that when the Paraclete comes he will testify about Jesus. In verse 27, Jesus tells his disciples that they will likewise bear witness about Jesus. And that of course has been the responsibility of all Christians for the last two thousand years: to testify, to bear witness, about our Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit comes to empower us to tell others the good news about what God has done for them through the Lord Jesus Christ.

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So that’s what we’ll look at this morning: the Christian duty to testify about Jesus Christ. Three headings: first, the necessity of testifying. Second, the practice of testifying. Third, the result of testifying. First, the necessity of testifying. Jesus says in verse 27 “you will testify,” and although he’s talking there to the first disciples and not to us, the command clearly applies to us because of other verses in the Bible, like the Great Commission in Matthew 28. “Go ye therefore and teach all nations …” It is absolutely necessary that we do this. But why is it necessary? Jesus says in verse 26 that he will send the Holy Spirit to the church. Paul put it like this in 1 Corinthians – he says, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16. You may think, “OK, that’s interesting – I have this Spirit living in me – that’s nice.” No, it’s not nice. It’s a lot more than nice. Paul says something profound here. One of the high points in the history of Israel can be found in 1 Kings 8. In that part of the record of the kings we read that when the temple of God was finally completed in Jerusalem, the priests of Israel brought the ark of the covenant into the inner room of the temple, the Most Holy Place. And when the priests set the ark down in the Most Holy Place, a cloud filled the temple. It was the glory cloud, the shekinah glory of the Lord God Almighty. The presence of this pulsating cloud of God’s glory drove the priests out of the temple such that they couldn’t work in the temple. This glory cloud was so powerful that it could kill on contact. And now, Paul says, Jesus says, that through the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, that very same glory of God, through God’s Holy Spirit, dwells in the bodies of all Christians. Do you know what that must mean? It means that when you become a Christian you are radically transformed, you become a new creation, and as a new creation you will naturally testify. It’s impossible not to. We do not testify about Jesus because we are commanded to do so, though of course we are commanded to do so. Rather, we testify about Jesus because we are compelled to do so by this life, this Spirit of truth, that is in us. Think about it like this: why does an azalea bush grow those beautiful blossoms every spring? Because you go outside and say to it, “I bought you, I put you in the ground, you’re in my yard, you have sunlight, so I command you to blossom!” No, once that bush is in the ground in Mississippi, then as soon as spring hits it will naturally blossom. It’s the same way with a Christian and the Spirit when it comes to testifying about Jesus – there’s no need to command Christians to do evangelism, because it is an organic imperative that we testify about Jesus. The natural result of being a Christian, of having the Spirit in you, is testifying about Jesus. In Luke 6:45, Jesus says, “Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” You can’t help it – if the Spirit of Jesus is in you (and the Holy Spirit is actually referred to at the Spirit of Jesus in the book of Acts) then you must talk about him. It’s necessary.

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But I know for many of us that’s not the experience we’ve had. The word “evangelism” makes a lot of us feel uncomfortable. We think of having to knock on the doors of strangers, or handing out tracts in public places. Many Christians get uncomfortable because they fear testifying about Jesus will alienate people or offend others, or because we’ve seen Christians act like jerks while doing this and we don’t want to make the same mistake. And because of our fear, we don’t talk about Jesus like we think we should and so we begin to feel guilty, and when we have testified or tried to testify about Jesus, it’s felt anything but natural. It’s felt forced and awkward. Why is that? Second, the practice of testifying. We can see three things that are necessary for natural, effective evangelism. If all these aren’t true of you, then it’s going to be hard to testify about Jesus. First, to faithfully testify about Jesus you must know him. Think about the very word used by Jesus in verse 27 to describe us: witness. What is a witness? Someone who testifies, who has personally seen some event, and then shared what she knows with others. The only reason you will ever get called as a material witness in a trial down at the courthouse is if you personally see or hear something that has to do with the facts of that case. You must know something before you can be a witness. I have never been called as a witness in any type of litigation, I’ve never been deposed, because by God’s grace I’ve managed to avoid knowing anything that would make me a witness in a trial. But if you don’t have any personal experience with Jesus, if you don’t really know him, then you can’t testify about him. You can’t testify about people whom you don’t know. For example, I grew up in the church, my parents always had me in church, for which I am very grateful, so I went off to college and knew the Bible pretty well, I had heard thousands of sermons over the course of my life. But I had put very little effort into actually knowing Jesus, getting a personal experience of Jesus. So later in my college years when I had the opportunity to bear witness about Jesus, there wasn’t much I could say. I didn’t know what to say – I knew some facts about Jesus, I knew the stories about Jesus, I’d even memorized some of the Bible through my church, but I didn’t really know Jesus. I hadn’t meditated on his word. And I vividly remember my senior year having the chance to pray out loud at a particular meeting, and it terrified me – not because I was afraid of public speaking (that’s never bothered me too much) but because I didn’t know what to say. And how could I? I’d never really prayed. I’d prayed in a “now I lay me down to sleep” kind of way but never as if I was talking with someone I knew, loved, depended on, trusted. So, perhaps some of you are like me. You’ve spent a lot of time in church, around the Bible, around prayer, around Jesus – but you don’t know him. It feels forced and

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unnatural and awkward when you try to testify because it is forced and unnatural and awkward to act like you know someone when you really don't. The best thing you can do if you want to bear witness for Jesus is to try to get to know him. You’re already around him if you come to Grace – now try to get to know him. Open up your Bible and try to read it for yourself. Attend a Bible study with someone who seems to know Jesus a lot better than you do. And most of all pray. Start asking him directly to reveal himself to you because you want to know and testify about him. Please do not take anything I just said as meaning that brand new Christians who know almost nothing about Jesus cannot testify about him. They can, and it can be very powerful, but of course it’s limited. If you just became a Christian last week, you’ll only have so much you can say about him. But you can still testify. I love in John 1 and in John 4, when people like Andrew and Philip and the Samaritan woman first meet Jesus and believe in him, they immediately testify. How? They don’t know him, but they go to their friends and say, “Come and see.” They know almost nothing about Jesus, but they can at least go to their friends who don’t yet know Jesus and bring them to him. You can do that to – you can go to your friends, no matter how little you know about Jesus right now, and say to them, “Come and see.” Come to this Bible study, come to this church, come to this prayer meeting, and see for yourself about this Jesus I just got to know. Even from the first minute you get to know Jesus, you can testify. Now, really, only you can lift the burden of not knowing Jesus off yourself. You must make up your mind if you want to know Jesus better. No one else can do that for you. But I can help you with the next two. Second, to faithfully testify about Jesus you only have to teach, not argue. Look at the last half of verse 20. In the NIV 1984 it says, “If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.” Bearing witness means teaching others about Jesus. Something’s implied here if we’ll just think about it. No one expects people to teach students who don’t want to learn, to argue people into learning that don’t want to learn, except possibly in our modern public education system. I do think our teachers are often put in that position. But other than that, no one seriously expects it. Jesus certainly doesn’t, but we put it on ourselves. We think it’s our responsibility to make sure people believe in Jesus, even if it means arguing with them. And here’s what happens: Thanksgiving rolls around, and you know Uncle Walt is going to be at the family Thanksgiving meal. And Uncle Walt does not go to church, so you go online and print some articles out by R.C. Sproul on apologetics, you memorize some verses, and you get ready, because this is going to be the year you argue with Uncle Walt until he is convinced he is wrong about organized religion. But what happens, year after year, with Uncle Walt? You just get in a big loud “discussion” (which may or may not be fueled by too much alcohol before the meal), and it ends with you sitting alone at the dinner table eating your twentieth piece of turkey. Everyone else left an hour earlier because they were tired of you and Uncle Walt ruining another holiday.

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Friends, you do not have to argue anyone into the kingdom of God. Because guess what? You can’t argue anyone into the kingdom of God. We are to sow the seed of the gospel liberally but if people won’t take it that’s not our responsibility. Third (this isn’t in the text but I think it’s important to mention), to faithfully testify about Jesus you can wait to do it until you have context. When I was a kid it seemed like every traveling evangelist that came to my church to preach a revival had an airplane story. Do you know what that is? It’s where the evangelist boards a flight in Memphis, sits down next to a complete stranger, and by the time the plane lands in Atlanta an hour later he has led the stranger to pray to receive Christ. And many of us grew up in churches it was implied that was the truest form of evangelism, and if we weren’t testifying for Jesus like – going up to complete strangers, telling them the whole gospel message in under five minutes, and getting them to pray the prayer – that then we weren’t really testifying about Jesus. I do not want to imply that Christians should never testify like that – not at all. It’s just that we don’t see evangelism modeled that way in Scripture. When the apostles testified about Jesus, in almost every occasion there was context. Either the apostle already had a relationship with the person they were testifying to, or they were in an environment where a conversation on spiritual things was to be expected. For example, Paul, on his various missionary journeys, when he arrived in a new city would go first to the local synagogue or the place of prayer and there he would testify about Jesus. There was context. When Jesus sent the disciples out two by two into the towns of Israel he told them to first go to a person of peace, someone already on board, before they began preaching. There was context. Wednesday night Tyler spoke on Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch from Acts 8 – the Ethiopian eunuch is in his chariot on his way back to his kingdom, reading from Isaiah, and at first glance it looks like an instance where a Christian goes up to a complete stranger and testifies. But when you realize that the Spirit himself directed Philip to go up to the chariot, and the eunuch was reading out loud from Isaiah 53, which is the most Christ-centered passage in the whole Old Testament, you realize that even Philip had context. So don’t feel guilty if you don’t immediately vomit a gospel presentation on a stranger within five minutes of meeting him. Don’t feel guilty if you do. But, let’s be clear, once someone is no longer a stranger to you, then you must testify. Remember? You must because through the Holy Spirit the shekinah glory of God dwells in you. Anne Rice – her books have sold almost 100 million copies. She wrote Interview with a Vampire, back before vampires were as popular as they are now. She grew up Catholic, though for thirty years lived as an atheist, and then in her fifties returned to Christianity. Charlie Rose once asked her, “How have you lived your life differently since you returned to the church?” “Everything is different, but it’s different in that when you realize and see that the whole point of life is to love and to serve, [and] that really requires you to be kind and loving to every single person you meet. And of course I can't live up to that, I can’t … but I can remind myself of it fifty times a day. And that is the

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biggest, most pervasive change. To let loose of a bad temper, to let loose of vanity, to let loose of selfishness. That’s the biggest change. To really live your life as if that is the most important thing you can do. To love and to serve.” Rose: “To love and to serve Jesus?” Rice: “To love and serve everybody else for his sake.” And in that interview she does a very effective, natural job of testifying about Jesus. When the people around you who know you see that’s true of you, and when you tell them it’s because of Jesus – you will testify. You won’t be able to stop, and you wouldn’t want to try. Third, the result of testifying. If you do have the Spirit in you and begin to share the gospel with others, two things will happen as a result: something will happen to you and something will happen to those who hear you. First, you will be hated. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” John 15:18-20. Why? If we are loving and serving everyone, why would the world hate us? And it’s because of the nature of our testimony. Jesus hints at this in John 15:23, where he says, “Whoever hates me hates my Father also.” But he clearly states the principle in John 7:7: “The world cannot hate you [he says to his brothers, who don't believe in him], but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.” The world will never like the gospel message, because the gospel says that the world is totally messed up. The gospel message is that people are so wicked that we deserve the judgment and wrath of God, it says that all of us are building the foundation of our lives on shifting sand (like sex, money, relationships, appearance – all of which will let us down sooner or later), it says that even when we do good deeds we do them for selfish reasons. The gospel message says we are messed up, so of course the world hates us. The world has only ever hated Christians. Now, this hatred has looked different at various times and places in the world, but in our moment it means that to the world Christians are at best well-meaning fools and at worst hate-filled bigots. So, on a good day the world looks at Christians and says, “Oh, my goodness, you believe all that nonsense? About God, and angels, and Jesus, and miracles, and you believe the Bible is the Word of God?” At best we are fools, but to the world we are at worst bigots. We believe that Jesus is the only way to God, the only way to be saved. We also believe what the Bible says about sex, that it’s only for a man and a woman inside of marriage. And if you want proof the world thinks that’s bigoted just pick up any newspaper, even our local newspapers, and see how believers are portrayed when they define human sexuality from a Christian standpoint. And, remember, it’s always been this way – Christians have always been hated by the world. This didn’t just start in 1969 or 2001. The first time Billy Graham when to the White House, in 1950, and visited with President Harry Truman, Graham shared the

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gospel with him. And Truman was so offended that Graham would do that he told his associates to never let Billy Graham back in the White House so long as he was in office. We must not be surprised when the world hates us – we sign up for it by becoming a Christian. But a second result of testifying is what happens to those who hear – they will have no excuse. Some of you here today are not Christians, and of course if that’s you we’re glad you’re here. And you maybe you’re sitting there thinking, “Yes, you’re right – I don’t like the Christian message. It does make you all sound like fools or bigots.” And if that’s you, before you completely tune me out, I just want you to know … that the message is even more offensive than that. Let’s read verses 22 and 24. “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” “If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.” Jesus is not saying here that had he not come into the world, the world would be sinless or guiltless before God. Rather, Jesus is saying that before he came to earth, the world may have had the pretense of an excuse for their sin against God, but now in light of the full revelation of God through Jesus Christ even the pretense of an excuse (and that’s all it ever was – a pretense) is gone. Those of us who know about Jesus Christ are totally without excuse for our sin. See, I told you it gets worse. But can I show all of you the flipside of all this? First, this shows that God is absolutely fair. A lot of people say they cannot become a Christian because they say they are worried about the hypothetical man in a jungle somewhere who never heard about Jesus. They say they can’t become a Christian because that man, according to Christians, must be going to hell. But Jesus in John 15 is saying, “I’m going to be fair. The less you know about me, the less responsible you’ll be.” In Luke 12:48: “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required…” God will be absolutely fair. The people who never heard about Jesus will be judged accordingly, they will be judged lightly. God will take that into account. When Jesus sent the disciples into Israel to testify, and a town rejected their message, Jesus said this: “Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah [which never heard the gospel of Jesus] than for that town.” Matthew 10:15. God is absolutely fair. God will judge those who know little lightly, but for you, friends, think about it like this: right now you’re sitting here listening to another sermon, getting more information, getting a better understanding of what you need to do with your life. Do you realize what you’re doing to yourself? Do you realize what I’m doing to you? If you don’t act on this knowledge, you’re responsible for that.

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And God wants to know, “What are you doing with the knowledge I’ve given you? What are you doing with the resources I’ve given you: your money, your house, your talents, your energy?” Since you’ve heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, you are responsible for using it for God, and you will be held accountable for it. God will judge those of us who have sat in church for decades strictly (and especially if you taught in the church, like me – that’s James 3:1), but he will judge those who never heard Jesus lightly. Second, God is absolutely accepting. So many people say they can’t believe in a God, like the God of the Bible, that doesn’t love and accept everyone. And when I hear that I just shake my head, because our God will love and accept anyone – he will love and accept and make his child anyone who comes to him. A couple of years ago I read a memoir written by a woman who, when she begins her story, was in her mid-30’s, was a tenured professor in the English department at a prominent university, was involved in all the most liberal causes in her university community, her primary field of study was gay and lesbian studies. And she herself was in a long-term lesbian relationship. She was very happy in her life – loved her work, enjoyed the relationships in her life. But then she met a pastor of a very conservative, very traditional church (a church where they don’t even sing hymns, just psalms). But this pastor and his wife were wise, smart, loving, sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and they began a friendship with her. The first time they met with her they did not even share the gospel, but they invited her over for dinner time and time again, and they talked and talked and talked. They very slowly and respectfully began to testify about Jesus. And after two years (two years!) of conversations, after her gay and lesbian friends began to warn her “something’s different about you, you’re changing,” one even told her, “If you’re not careful, you’ll become a Christian,” she went to a Sunday morning service at the pastor’s church. And that night she prayed this prayer: “God, is the gospel … for someone like me, too[? And as I prayed] I viscerally felt the living presence of God as I prayed. Jesus seemed present and alive. I knew that I was not alone in my room. I prayed that if Jesus was truly a real and risen God, that he would change my heart. And if he was real and if I was his, I prayed that he would give me the strength of mind to follow him and the character to become a godly woman.” What happened to her? The Holy Spirit came into her life. The Spirit of Truth. And he did not say, “Before I’ll accept you, you need to change this and this and this about your life.” No, he said, “Come right now, come as you are, and I’ll accept you and make you mine. I won’t leave you as you are, I will change you, but I accept you as you are right now.” Friends, if you’re not a Christian and your big objections are that God is not fair and that God is not accepting, well I’m not saying there aren’t good reasons not to become a Christian but those aren’t two of them. He is so fair that rather than make you pay for your sins, he became a man in Jesus Christ and paid for them himself on the cross. And

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he is so accepting that rather than come to earth to take revenge on his enemies, Jesus dies for them. It does not matter who you are, where you’re from, what you’ve done, what you’ve failed to do, if you’ll go to God through Jesus Christ he will welcome you into his family. He is fair and he is accepting and he is love. That’s my testimony about Jesus – I pray you accept it. PRAY

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