The apostle John says at the beginning of our reading: “Do
not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.” Let’s first understand
who he is talking about. There are two groups of people here: “brothers” and
“the world.” When John says, “brothers,” he is referring to Christians. He is
not excluding women when he says “brothers,” as it might seem. He uses the word
“brothers” because all Christians receive the adoption of sonship when they are
baptized into Jesus. Baptism is a union with Jesus whereby all Christians, male
and female, receive Jesus’s status before God. The only way that anybody can be
a child of God is by being born again with the water and the word of Baptism.
All Christians are one in Christ, God’s Son. Therefore, when John says, “brothers,”
he is not excluding women or girls. He is referring to all those who are
baptized into Christ and through their relationship with Jesus have become
children of God.
The other group of people that the apostle John refers to is
“the world.” This word has a special meaning in Scripture that isn’t exactly
the same as how the word might be used by someone who is unfamiliar with the
Scriptures. What is meant by “the world” are those people who remain in their
original sin, who are not converted, and who therefore retain all the traits
that come naturally to us all according to our sinful flesh. These traits would
be selfishness, fear, suspicion, cynicism, lying, sneaking, and so on. Christians, as well as
unbelievers, have to contend with these traits, because all people are born in
sin.
However, in those who believe in Jesus, the Holy Spirit does
not let these traits of the flesh go on unhindered. The Holy Spirit fights
against these evil natural impulses. He draws us towards the opposite of these
traits, such as faith, hope, love, honesty, kindness, and so on. Those who do
not have the Holy Spirit, those who do not believe, are left to themselves with
their sinful flesh. These are the people John refers to as being “the world.”
So another way that you could say what John says here is:
“Do not be surprised, Christians, when those who are unconverted hate you.”
Here we have something to chew on. Whenever something
strikes us as strange in the Scriptures we do well to stop and consider it.
What John says here is something that our modern church culture does not
understand. Those who are unconverted will hate those who are converted. The world
will hate us if we are indeed converted, if we are indeed Jesus’s brothers.
The standard operating procedure for practically all
Christian churches for a very long time has been that we want to make it
impossible for anyone to hate us. We want everybody in the community to say
that we are the best church in town, and that only a fool would say anything
bad about us. How different this is from the way that Jesus’s closest disciple,
John, speaks. It’s as though he wants to comfort us with our troubles by saying
that we shouldn’t be surprised—this is just how it goes—the world hates
Christians.
Since the common understanding among us is so different from
what John says, we have a lot to learn here. I’d like to start to get at it by
trying to answer two questions with this sermon today: (1) why does the world
hate us Christians? and (2) what should we Christians do about it?
For answering the question of why the world hates us
Christians, it is helpful to hear what John says just before our reading today.
Our reading began with verse 13. Here is verse 11 and following: “This is
the message you have heard from the beginning: Love one another. Do not be like
Cain, who belonged to the Evil One, and murdered his brother. And why did he
murder him? Because his own works were evil, while those of his brother were
righteous.” Then we have the verse that we are especially considering today:
“Do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you.”
So what John is saying is that we Christians are in a
similar situation as Abel found himself in with his brother Cain. Let’s briefly
review this story from Genesis chapter 4. Cain was Adam and Eve’s first born
son. Abel was their second born son. When these two brothers offered sacrifices
to God, Abel’s sacrifice was found to be more acceptable than Cain’s. This made
Cain angry. Cain was warned that he should control his anger, but didn’t. One
day he went out to the field with his brother and killed him. The first human
being born on this earth in the natural way ended up being a murderer. This
tells us something about our human nature.
So what can we learn from this about why the world hates us
Christians? John tells us. He says that Cain’s works were evil, while his
brother’s works (Abel’s works) were righteous. Cain couldn’t stand the sight of
his brother, because whenever he looked at his brother he saw his own judgment
and condemnation.
Now it might seem that Cain was angry just at his brother
Abel for being the way that he was, but that is not true. Cain is angry with
God and the judgment that God has rendered upon him with his Word. We can see
this if we do a thought experiment here.
Suppose that everything happened just the way that Moses
tells us it happened, but with this one change: Suppose that Abel took the side
of his brother Cain. Suppose that even though Abel’s sacrifice was better than
his brother’s that Abel said, “No, God, you shouldn’t say that. I’m going to
stick with my brother Cain. The way that Cain has been living is just fine. Who
are you, God, to judge what’s right or wrong?” If Abel had joined his brother
Cain in his rebellion against God, in his hatred against God, then Abel and
Cain would have been friends. They would have been on the same side. So Cain’s
anger is not so much against Abel as it is against God. It is only because Abel
doesn’t abandon God and side with Cain that makes Cain see Abel as his enemy.
Cain hates Abel, because Abel remains faithful to God’s Word rather than being
faithful to his brother.
Here we can see the answer for why the world hates
Christians. The world hates Christians because Christians do not take their
side. If Christians told everybody that everything that they were doing was
just swell, and they should keep it up, then how could the world hate such
people? It is when Christians remain faithful to God’s judgments against
wickedness that those who do wickedness get upset. So the reason why the world
hates Christians is not just because they don’t like the person. It is because
they don’t like the God who is shining forth in such a person.
Now that we know why the world hates Christians, let’s
consider our second question: what should we do about it? One option has
already been laid out. We could switch sides. Any Christian who abandons God’s
judgments that others find offensive will quickly find that they are seen as
kind and welcoming by those who do not believe. But if we do this, then we will
no longer be Christians. We’d actually be God’s enemies, raging against his
judgments like Cain did.
While this seems like it should be an unacceptable option
that no Christian would actually go for, that isn’t the case. The history of
God’s people, as it is recorded in the Bible, shows that they are always sorely
tempted to side with the world. And this makes sense from a certain
perspective. Abel would have had a much better quality of life if he would have
given up on God’s judgments. His quality of life would have been much better
because Cain wouldn’t have killed him.
That’s how it always is for God’s people. If you pretend
that you know nothing of God’s Word, that you know nothing of God’s
commandments, and that whatever your friends and family decide to do is a-okay
with you, then you will have a better quality of life—at least during this
earthly life. But if you correct a mocker or warn a wicked person, as it says
in our Old Testament reading from Proverbs, then watch out. You will be inviting
insults, abuse, and hatred upon yourself.
But this course of action is not without cost either. In
fact, the cost is as steep as steep can be! When Christians do this, they are
abandoning the battle field against the devil. They are essentially quitting.
Nobody can be saved when God’s Word is brought to nothing—when it is silenced,
or reinterpreted, or ignored, or whatever else. The way that sinners are saved
is by repenting of their wickedness, that is to say, by fearing God’s judgment,
and yet to draw near to him because of the promise of forgiveness for Jesus’s
sake. Being saved by repenting for sin and believing in God’s mercy is the way
that the whole Bible speaks of all God’s people. This is the only way that
anybody will be saved until the end of this world.
So if we just quit—if we won’t stand by God’s judgments that
condemn ourselves as well as everybody else—then there is no hope of salvation.
The Gospel will have been taken away entirely. Instead of churches preaching
God’s Word, they will become mutual appreciation societies, where everybody
slaps each other on the back and says what jolly good fellows they all are.
This is the opposite of preaching Christ, and him crucified. This is the devil,
dressing himself up as an angel of light.
Therefore, we have to remain faithful to God’s judgments,
which do good by bringing sinners into sorrow and repentance. This necessarily
means that the world will hate us, as the apostle John says, for repentance
does not come naturally to us. But not all the world will hate us, for some of
them will be converted. There is no such thing as a Christian who resents the
sharp word that was spoken to them that exposed his or her sin. All Christians
are glad whenever they think back on that person who cared about them enough to
say what was difficult to say, or do what was difficult to do.
Solomon also comments on this in our Old Testament reading.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One
(that is, Jesus) is understanding. The one who is wise receives rebuke and
instruction and becomes wiser still. It is needful for us to keep this in mind,
for we are not yet dead. And it may be, that God sends a wise reprove into our
life. We must not fly off the handle and go off in a huff when that happens.
Let it bring about fear of the Lord’s judgment in you. Then it will do you
good. Then you will look to our crucified Lord Jesus, not as someone you can
take or leave, but as the one whom you need to save you from hell, where you’d
otherwise rightly go.
Therefore, in reaction to the world’s hatred against us
Christians, we must continue to remain faithful to God and his Word. But how do
we deal with these people who get so angry with us that they might even want to
kill us? Here, too, we need to have our ears wide open, for the Bible does not
speak as we might naturally think. Jesus has a lot to say about this. He says
that when we are struck on one cheek, we are to turn, so that they might strike
the other as well. Whoever sues us for our cloak, we should give them our
garment as well. Do not curse those who persecute you. Bless those who
persecute you. Do not resist evil, but overcome evil with good.
We could continue to go on with these instructions to us
Christians at some length, but we’ve already heard enough to get the idea. We
are to love our enemies. Enemies, by definition, want to hurt you. Therefore we
are to love those who hurt us. We are even to be kind and generous to
them—giving them the wealth that we have worked hard to collect for ourselves.
This surely does not mean that we lie to them or alter God’s Word for them so
that we take their side over and against God. That would not be kind at all,
for how else can they be saved except through the Word of truth? But otherwise
we are to yield to them, even giving up our life for their sake if it should
come to that. The willingness to give up everything, even our own life, for our
neighbor, is not something unusual for us as Christians. It is simply following
in the way of our Master.
This is something that is impossible for flesh and blood,
but all things are possible with God. May God grant us the Holy Spirit towards
this end.
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