John 15:18-16:15 - You Can’t Handle The Truth

Main Idea: Jesus answers the world's hostility with the Spirit's life-changing presence in believers.

WE LIVE IN THE WORLD SYSTEM THAT CRUCIFIED JESUS.

• The world's systems reject Jesus' identity, words, and miracles.

• The world's systems will ridicule, isolate, and persecute Jesus' people.

• The world's systems will reach the same judgment Jesus has for Satan.

WE'VE BEEN GIVEN THE HOLY SPIRIT BY JESUS.

• The Holy Spirit convicts the world as guilty for their rejection of Jesus.

• The Holy Spirit guides believers to learn and apply God's truth.

• The Holy Spirit glorifies the Son, as the Son glorifies the Father.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

So, we've been looking through. Jesus shares his last meal with the disciples. He tells them about what he's calling them to do.

And then he tells them some of what the future holds for them, of the home that was awaiting them in heaven, that Jesus was returning to the Father, that he wouldn't leave them empty handed, but he would give his Holy Spirit and his peace to them, so

that they could navigate through their lives here on earth, just like we do, with God's own presence, it's his Holy Spirit living inside of us. And today we're going to be looking in these verses.

I've entitled today's sermon to wake you up a little bit. You can't handle the truth. As we walk through the passage, you'll actually see that's a pretty good estimation or summary of what this passage entails.

But I want you to think today about hostility towards Christianity, or hostility towards Christians. We live in America. The largest amounts of hostility that we endure are sometimes people don't like Christians, or they might make fun of Christians.

But we have it very easy here in America. There are certain places around the globe that you could go today that if you tried to convert a person from a particular country to Christ, you would be killed for your faith.

There are places that you could go today that if you were born into a family, that was not Christian, and you chose to follow the Lord in believers baptism, that you would be exiled from the family. I can't remember what you call it.

What do you call it when you cut off a family member? Well, excommunicated would certainly be like kind of the church word that we use for it. But you get cut off from your family, and they will treat you as dead if you give your life to Jesus.

Some of you have encountered that even within your own lives or families.

My in-laws experienced that for about 10 years after they came to faith in Christ at about 30 years of age, that they accepted the Lord and suddenly found that they were personas non grata with the rest of their family.

And we can wonder as we profess to be Christians, and we say we follow the king of the world, and we wonder why our culture, why our world seems so hostile often towards Christians.

You can think even a few years ago, we had churches down in the DC area, churches in California and many other places that were fined tens of thousands of dollars for gathering together to worship.

There's even a bill right now in the Maryland Senate that seeks to remove churches' non-profit status for, as the bill is currently lined out, for speaking either for or against any candidates, something that churches, you guys know me, I, when I mention political candidates, it's never like, man, I love this one or this guy's the worst. No, we pray for our spiritual candidates, or sorry, we pray for our political candidates.

But that's something that's going on even right now within our own state. There was a bill passed, Bill C-4, a couple years ago in Canada, that criminalizes counseling someone to follow Scripture's instructions on human sexuality.

That even as I preach here about biblical marriage, that is to be between one man and one woman for one life, that even proclaiming that I could be fined or imprisoned in Canada under that particular bill.

You can think even to a few weeks ago, there was a church in Minnesota that was invaded by protestors as they had objections to one of the lay elders in that church and his employment in a government office.

All of those situations, especially if we have anyone here today that is not a Christian, those situations have a lot of aspects to them.

But the simple truth is, as we look at our world, as we look even at our nation, in our state and in Canada, we can see that the Christian world view is not something that is readily accepted.

But what we see in today's passage is that Jesus told us that this would happen to the disciples 2,000 years ago, and it would be the same thing that we encounter today.

And what Jesus tells the disciples, because he lays it out for them of here are the troubles, here's the persecution that you're going to experience. But he didn't tell them all of that back at the beginning of their journey.

You see, in life, there are some things that we only understand once we have experience, or once we've met the right person, then we can understand some things. I didn't truly understand God's love for me as my father until I had Bea.

And then I went, oh, okay, this makes a lot more sense now. Many kids today don't understand why they have to eat vegetables until they learn about nutrition and their bodies.

And they go, okay, I want to be able to walk or to breathe or to have some semblance of health in a couple of years. In today's passage, Jesus lets the disciples know about the hardships ahead of them.

But he also let them know that the Holy Spirit that he was about to send would let them know things that he couldn't tell them yet. In essence, Jesus tells the disciples, you can't handle the truth, not yet, not until the Holy Spirit comes.

And he told them that the world would not be able to handle the truths of God's word that he had commissioned to them.

5:40

Worldʼs Hatred

Let's read through this passage, and then we will dive into the sermon for today. I encourage you to follow along as we read. If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.

Jesus says, I picked you as my disciples, as my apostles, so I love you, and the world that hates me and would kill Jesus the next day would not love these disciples either. He says, Remember the word I spoke to you.

A servant is not greater than his master. He said that in chapter 13 after he washed the disciples' feet. He says, If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.

If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. If you will, none of us will be more popular than Jesus.

If the world that wanted to crucify Christ or the world that tried to stone Jesus at various points throughout his ministry, if they disliked Jesus, often we make the mistake of saying, Okay, I know Jesus went through all that, and Jesus was unliked, and Jesus was unpopular, but I think I ought to be loved and liked by everyone in my life. The truth is, if they hated Jesus, they'll hate you as well.

It says, but they will do all these things to you on account of my name because they don't know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now they have no excuse for their sin.

So prior to Jesus coming, when everyone thought of spiritual people within Israel, the religious people, they thought of the Pharisees. And these were the ones that knew the Old Testament. And so they thought that they were following God.

However, when Jesus came to the Pharisees, when he came to the religious, he showed they were not loving or following God. And now they were guilty of having rejected the Messiah, the one sent to save their people.

He says, the one who hates me also hates my father. There was no access, even as Jesus told us in John 14. I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No man comes unto the father except through me. You can't say, well, I like the idea of God or a creator, but I'm not about that Jesus stuff. There is no eternal life.

There's no relationship with God outside of the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus says, if I had not done the works among them that no one else has done, they would not be guilty of sin.

He says, I performed the miracles, so it wasn't just that I made audacious claims that everyone else just had to take up my word. He says, no, I said the words from God and they didn't believe me.

I did the miracles from God and they didn't believe me. They are doubly guilty. He says, now they have seen and hated both me and my father.

He says, but this happened so that the statement written in their law might be fulfilled. They hated me for no reason.

Jesus here is quoting from the Psalms and what his ancestor David had once written of people that persecuted God's people as a result of them wanting to follow in the way of God, and yet they were unloved and unappreciated.

And Jesus, the fulfillment of all of scripture, says, this has been my experience as well. Let me stop there. Everything so far, good news or bad news?

This is all bad news. Like this is, they hate you, they'll persecute you. They didn't love me.

They won't love you. They're guilty. They're convicted.

We can all go, ah, this is kind of depressing.

9:26

Counselorʼs Arrival

But then verse 26 says, when the counselor comes, this is the Holy Spirit, the paraclete, your advocate, the one who comes alongside you to comfort and guide and encourage and help you.

When the counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me. The Holy Spirit's job in your life and in my life is not just that we would get excited.

It's not just that we would have perhaps miraculous abilities. The point of the Holy Spirit is that we would know and experience Jesus. He says, you also will testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

So the Holy Spirit tells us about who? Jesus. Perfect.

And then we are also called to tell people to testify about who? Jesus. The Holy Spirit empowers us to do this testifying work.

He says, I have told you these things to keep you from stumbling. My son just recently had to go to the eye doctor to get checked out, see if he needed glasses. He didn't need glasses.

But how many of you have had your eyes dilated at any point, like semi recently? Yep, a couple of you. So he didn't know that was coming.

My wife also didn't know that it was coming. And the person that was doing the eye exam did not let him know that that was coming. And so when it happened, he was kind of taken aback by it.

Sometimes when you know, hey, this is going to sting a little, expect a drop to go on your eye, here's the shot, whatever it is. Knowing that something bad is coming can help you to kind of steel yourself against it.

I was watching something even the other day that a psychologist was saying, hey, if you have bad news to give someone, it's really helpful, like tell them right up front, hey, I've got some bad news, here it is, that you let them know that it's

coming, because when the human mind knows, all right, here's something bad that's going to happen, we can be pretty resilient in being able to withstand it. And so Jesus here even tells us that to say, there's going to be bad things that happen.

Your family members aren't going to appreciate your faith in Christ.

The governmental authorities, or in Jesus' case and in the apostles' case, the religious authorities are not going to like what you have to say, because it doesn't align with this world, this culture, this society's goals and mission.

And so Jesus says, I've told you these things to keep you from stumbling.

The fact that we know that there will be difficulties in our walk with Christ is something that Jesus warned us about, so that we wouldn't experience a hardship and go, I thought my life was supposed to be perfect now that I have Jesus.

I guess I'm just going to give it up because my life isn't perfect. No, my friend, Jesus warned us beforehand that this is the path that we would walk through.

12:24

Coming Persecution

Then Jesus describes a little more of what that would look like. He says, they will ban you from the synagogues. Now, if I said, hopefully this never happens to a single one of you.

If I was ever like, listen, Roger, I am banning you from Tabernacle. Man, well, and you've been here for, it's been almost 40 years now. Is it 87 that you got saved?

Yeah, so almost 40 years that you've known the Lord and walked in this place. If you were banned from Tabernacle, for you, like that, that would be a big thing for you. This is our church family together, and this is where we have worshiped the Lord.

In the Jewish synagogues, even a little bit more than that, this was where you spent all of your life. When you were born, at eight days old, you would go to the synagogue, and you would be circumcised as a Jewish boy.

And so you would spend all of your life centered around these places of God's worship. It was a place of family and community together. And Jesus says, you will lose out on family relationships.

You will lose out on your communal aspects of your life as a result of following me. He says, in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God.

The example that first comes to mind for me is the Apostle Paul, as he is bringing men and women that believe in Jesus, and he is bringing them and dragging them to Jerusalem in front of the Sanhedrin, where they would be tried and where they would

be imprisoned and killed, that Paul thought that he was doing all of that in service to God. And Jesus warned the disciples that this would happen. He says, they will do these things because they haven't known the Father or me.

Frankly, we ought to expect that those that do not know the source of life and love and forgiveness and joy would sometimes operate in ways that are loveless, that seek death instead of life, and that have no love for the people of God.

Can I tell you as well, though? Should we, as the people of God, ever be the ones that are persecuting and alienating and isolating others? Should we be behaving like these people that hate Jesus and hate the Father?

But far too often, we get into our own preferences, we get into our own emotions, and we say, this has to be about me, I have to be happy, and so I'm going to start getting after this person, I'm going to talk bad about that one or the other.

As the people of God in me, we recognize, I don't want to act like I don't know Jesus, I know God, I know my Savior, and so I'm going to act like him, I'm not going to act like the world that hates him.

Verse number four, he says, but I have told you these things so that when their time comes, you will remember I told them to you. I didn't tell you these things from the beginning because I was with you.

Jesus' presence even with the apostles was a safeguard for them that they would at that time, not experience the persecution that they would afterwards. Those of you that know church history would know 11 of the 12 apostles died gruesome deaths.

Many of them were crucified, some of them upside down in reverence to Christ to go, man, like if Jesus got crucified, you know, straight ways up, I'm not worthy to be crucified like Jesus.

So they said, hey, you know, flip it around and I'll be crucified that way, out of worship of their Lord. That didn't happen while Jesus was here on earth physically. And so he warns them about this.

He says, but now I'm going away to him who sent me, he's returning back to the father, like we heard at the beginning of the series in John 14. He says, not one of you asks me, where are you going?

Yep, because I've spoken these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Sometimes we can get so burdened down by this life and by the hardships that we face, whether relationally or financially or physically or emotionally, that we lose sight of the fact that we are God's children, we are headed to heaven, we are going

to be reunited with our Savior and with all of our loved ones that have come to know Jesus. And when we get down hearted, can I encourage us, lift our eyes up to the Savior.

Because the one who walks through death and came out the other side is the one that tells us that even the worst that life can deal us, which is the end of our own physical lives, is not the end. And heaven awaits the child of God.

So don't allow the sorrow of this world to overcome the joy of the fact that Jesus is in heaven and he is preparing a place for us.

17:17

Spiritʼs Conviction

Verse number seven, Jesus says, Nevertheless, I'm telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don't go away, the counselor will not come to you. And if I go, I will send him to you.

Jesus says, once I have been, or not reconciled, once I have returned to the Father, I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit. And trust me, God's presence living within you is even better than close physical proximity to God.

Jesus says it is better for you and I that we have the Holy Spirit living inside of us. It's even better for us than if Jesus himself was physically standing next to us. That's not how most of us would think.

We'd go, I would trade anything to be able to have Jesus standing right next to me. But Jesus says it's better for you that God's Holy Spirit lives inside of you. Do you treasure that gift of the Spirit?

We should. Jesus gives what the mission of the Spirit is. He says when he comes, he will convict, he will judge the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment.

About sin because they do not believe in me. The fundamental sin in our world is not the laundry list of bad things that people do, though all of those are sins against a holy God and against one another as image bearers of God.

Our fundamental sin as humanity is that we have not bowed the knee to King Jesus. We have not believed in and followed and obeyed Christ. And so here the Holy Spirit is convicting the world about sin because they don't believe in Jesus.

Today, if you have never turned over the keys of your life to Jesus, I encourage you, make today be the day that you choose Christ.

He is calling out to you, even from this passage, to say the Holy Spirit ought to convict you, that if you are not a Christian, if you have not surrendered your life to Jesus, that you said, I realize I've been walking my own path of sin, and I

choose to forsake my way. I'm no longer in charge of my life. I'm turning from my sin, and I'm turning in faith to Jesus.

If you have never done that, then today the Holy Spirit is calling to you to be saved, that you would place your faith in Christ.

That's not a question or an action of, all right, well, I guess I gotta take 12 classes, and then I can know that I have a relationship with God, or I'm on my way to heaven. No, Scripture says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

It says, if we believe in our heart and confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord, and we believe that God has raised him from the dead, we will be saved. That's something that you can do right there in your chair.

It's something that you can talk with someone and maybe pray with a pastor or an elder or a friend or family member by you, but there is nothing more important than that for your life.

Verse number 10 says, about righteousness, because I'm going to the Father, and you will no longer see me. The Holy Spirit is the one that convicts the world about their lack of following God.

And frankly, as Christians, this ought to be something that we constantly go back to. For those in the room that are Christians today, do you want to follow and obey God? Yes or no?

Yeah. We need the Holy Spirit to convict us when we are not walking in the right way, when we are not following the Lord with our life. We need the Holy Spirit to do this.

And then verse number 11, he says, and about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. There is a judgment, an end punishment that has been dictated for Satan, that he is headed for hell.

And for every person, they are offered the conviction of the Holy Spirit to go, you have two paths ahead of you. You can walk the road to life.

You can follow Jesus and find everlasting life in a relationship with God, or you can follow Satan on the path straight down to hell.

21:22

Spirit Guides Truth

Verse number 12, he says, I still have many things to tell you, but you can't bear them now. You can't handle the truth. He says, but when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own.

The Holy Spirit doesn't have an alternate agenda to what the rest of the Trinity has. He says, he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come.

Think even as John the Apostle was writing this, he was the one that wrote Revelation, and he was the one that most experienced the Holy Spirit telling him what was to come.

Verse 14, Jesus says, He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything the Father has is mine. This is why I told you that he takes from what is mine and will declare it to you.

So everything that the Father has belongs to the Son, belongs to the Spirit, belongs to the Father. These three are one. They work together in perfect love and community, all to help God's people.

22:30

Worldʼs Judgment

From these verses, we see that Jesus answers the world's hostility with the Holy Spirit's life-changing presence in believers. And today, we just have two closing thoughts here from this passage.

First is that we live in the world system that crucified Jesus. We don't live in an alternate planet or an alternate timeline. Like this is the world in which we as humanity rejected Jesus and crucified him.

The world systems reject Jesus' identity, his words, and his miracles. This is what Jesus said in the passage. To this day, the world doesn't believe in Jesus as God and Lord.

They don't obey his teachings and they view him as backwards and repressive. They ridicule his miracles and claim that they did not happen.

Look at shows or movies over the last 30 to 40 years, and you'll almost exclusively see Jesus in pop culture made to be the butt of jokes or ridicule, and those that follow him portrayed as crazy or controlling.

And the world's systems that rejected Jesus, they will ridicule, isolate, and persecute God's people. You see, the world's rejection doesn't stop with Jesus. It extends to Jesus' body today, his bride, the church.

As Jesus told the disciples, the hatred that led the Romans and the Sanhedrin to kill Jesus would extend to the disciples as well. And those that despise Jesus will despise those that serve Jesus.

Today, when you experience ridicule or shame because you believe the Bible or because you're attending a church or giving to the Lord's work or spending more than one hour a week on your soul, know that Jesus promised this would happen.

And it's a reflection on the other person that they hate Jesus. It's not an indictment on you or on your intellect. Not a week goes by that online as we publish different like sermons and Bible study things on the internet every single week.

I have people ridiculing like me and my faith. And this passage was such an encouragement to me that I went, okay, no, this makes sense. They don't love Jesus.

They're not gonna love the people that tell them about Jesus. And if they reject the son of God, well, you know, I'm a child of God, praise the Lord. I'm not as charismatic or as powerful or anything as Jesus was.

And so this is a reflection on that person in their walk with God. It's not a reflection on you or your intellect. But then I'm so grateful that this world's systems, they will reach the same judgment that Jesus has for Satan.

This world's kingdoms, its rulers, its groups, like the Romans and like the Sanhedrin, they will not rule forever.

This world, its oppressive regimes, rulers and courts that currently harm so many Christians around the globe, they will one day have to answer to someone themselves.

That's the glorious hope written about by John in Revelation, by the way, that those that were lighting Christians on fire to light the streets of Rome would have their own punishments levied back onto them.

Those that killed Christians would see them rise again. Every evil empire, every Babylon, every Rome, will meet its end.

And the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords will justly punish those that reject the creator's good way in order to try to define good and evil on their own terms. What's the judgment that is coming for this world's systems?

The same judgment that is coming for its ruler. That old serpent that deceived Adam and Eve back in the garden, one day he will reap what he has sown out onto the world.

And those that reject the creator's like love and his good way of life, they will follow Satan into that judgment. Which team are you playing for today? Are you on team Satan?

Do you do the works of the flesh that he wants you to do? Are you following your own path of morality and choices regardless of what Jesus says? Do you ignore Jesus' identity as the one who should be in charge of your life?

Do you disobey his words, his commands that he has given you for your human flourishing?

Do you ignore his miracles knowing that he has proven himself to be trustworthy and good and able to rescue our fallen world, even as we saw testimony of this morning with the fix? Repent today, Jesus will accept you.

What a joy it is then to know that though the world will judge believers, they'll suspect us, decline relationships with us and attempt sometimes to prosecute us for our faith, or even at times try to kill us.

The judging world will one day face its judge. Even more encouraging for us, that judge lives inside of us today.

27:31

Spiritʼs Purpose

That's the last thing we'll see this morning, that we've been given the Holy Spirit by Jesus. The Holy Spirit convicts the world as guilty for their rejection of Jesus.

When we think of the word, either the verb or noun, convict or convict, we don't normally view it as a good thing. If I'm like, listen, Emma's a convict, everyone's gonna go, oh man, what did she do? She must have done something terrible.

We don't view conviction as a good thing. If we're being convicted, it means we've made some bad choices along the way that have led us in front of a judge or jury. However, for Christians, conviction is actually viewed as a good thing.

Conviction means that God has loved us enough to warn us that we're on a wrong path and that we can choose to instead follow His path.

I can't tell you the amount of times that I've sat under preaching or been reading my Bible or had someone that lovingly showed me what Scripture said, and I fell under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that I knew that I was wrong.

There's an inherent shame that comes in the moment as I realize that my actions or words or attitude were not good, but what a freedom comes after to realize that my God convicts me in order that I can ask for mercy.

And John tells us in another one of his writings, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Today, do you welcome the Holy Spirit's conviction?

Are you open to God telling you through his word or his people that you're in sin, that you are in the wrong? When was the last time that you felt shame for words or actions or attitudes that you had that were in opposition to God?

As it relates to this passage, the Holy Spirit's threefold conviction of the world means that we should not attempt to be in with a world that is headed for sentencing.

Don't spend your time trying to win the affections or respect of those that don't want Jesus in your life. Be a friend. Be kind.

Be generous. Show them what Jesus is like. But if you ever have to choose between living for or obeying Jesus, and having a romantic relationship, friendship, or job without Jesus, choose the Jesus way.

He is the only ship that is not actively sinking. Secondly, from this passage, the Holy Spirit guides believers to learn and apply God's truth.

I already mentioned the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to point us towards Jesus, that he would guide us into all truth, that what we have been told in the Word through its divine author, the Holy Spirit will, as we read and as we meditate and as we

pray over the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will show us what we need to know day by day. Third, the Holy Spirit glorifies the Son as the Son glorifies the Father.

What's the purpose of the judgment of the world or of us learning God's Word or of showing Jesus' light to our dark world? The answer is so that Jesus would be glorified. Why should we glorify Jesus?

He is God. What will Jesus do with all the glory that is given to him? He will give it to the Father who is glorified as God.

What's our purpose in this world? Why do we go through rejection or ridicule because of Jesus? Why do we bother learning God's Word when it doesn't help us make more money or become more popular?

It's because our purpose is to bring glory to God. We are meant to help others see how beautiful and how good God is, how deserving He is of our praise and service and devotion so that they too will love and follow Him.

Can I ask you, in what ways over this past week did you bring glory to God? What words did you say to others that would make them think that God is powerful, or good, or beautiful, or worthy?

What actions did you take and tell others that you did them because God wants you to? When did you obey God this week even when it wasn't something that you wanted to do?

Our entire identity as children of God is that we are indwelt by the Spirit who wants to glorify God, and we're a part of the body of Christ, whose mission is to glorify God.

Today we recognize our world is broken, and the source of its brokenness is its rejection of God and his ways most exemplified by its rejection of Jesus as Lord and Savior.

As the world judges us, we recognize it's on its way to its own judgment with their conviction already lined out. However, the judge of this world lives within us, helping us to know God and to adopt his character and his mission.

Today, are you allowing the Holy Spirit to change your life, to convict you, to guide you into his truth so that you glorify God? This world, it's a sinking ship.

It's not on its way to the Lord, but for every person that recognizes Jesus' path, his goodness, his glory, and chooses to follow Jesus instead of their own way, there is eternal life for all that will follow in that path.

And for us as Christians, as believers, we can recognize those hard times will come. We'll be ridiculed, we'll be rejected, we'll be slandered, but that does not mean that God is not with us.

It means what they did to our Savior, what they did to our example is what will happen to us as well. But in the face of this world's rejection and persecution, we've been given the Holy Spirit of God to walk with us each step of the way.