We're in John chapter 15 and
reading together from verse 18. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking.
He's speaking to his disciples. He's speaking to us all and this
is what he says. If the world hates you, ye know
that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world,
the world would love his own. But because ye are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hateth you. Remember the word that I said
unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they
have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have
kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things
will they do unto you, for my name's sake, because they know
not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken
unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for
their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father
also. If I had not done among them
the works which none other man did, they had not had sin. But now have they both seen and
hated both me and my Father. But this cometh to pass, that
the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law. They
hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me,
and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me
from the beginning. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word as well. Time after time in these verses,
the Lord has emphasised the spiritual union that he has with his people
and the commitment that he has towards us as our carer, as our
guardian, as our benefactor. Union with Christ is the privilege
and benefit that we derive from Him as His Church and Bride. You and I, brothers and sisters,
are connected with the Lord Jesus Christ in a mystical union that
transcends all of the experiences of this life. as far as the natural
is concerned. His chosen people are set apart
in Him from eternity and appointed to live and dwell with Him in
eternity. And in this world, we are bound
together with Him with blessings that flow spiritually from Him
to us. God's elect are inextricably
joined to our saviour. He in us and we in him, entwined
together with his spiritual nature as he joined himself to us in
our fleshy nature. And in this passage, The Lord
Jesus speaks of our eternal existence. He says, because I live, ye shall
live also. We are a people who are looking
forward to eternal life and eternal existence. Why? Because I live,
says Jesus, ye shall live also. He speaks of our proximity to
Him. He speaks of our eternal existence,
and He speaks of our location. He speaks of our proximity to
Him. He says that where I am, there
ye may be also. So not only will we live with
Him eternally, but we will live in His presence. Where I am,
there ye may be also. He speaks of our occupation and
habitation. We, he says, the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, we the triune God, will come unto
you and make our abode with you. He speaks of sustaining us and
making us fruitful. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in
him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me you
can do nothing. These are all aspects of the
union that we have with Christ. He speaks of his personal devotion
and sacrifice to us. He says, greater love hath no
man than this, than a man lay down, or that a man lay down
his life for his friends. And then he tells us, as we thought
about last week, ye are my friends. All these speak of the blessing
of our being spiritually united, spiritually joined to Christ. He the head, we the body. And
the emphasis that the Lord places upon our union with him and his
union with us should not be overlooked. Lay hold on that, meditate upon
that, dwell upon that, think on that day by day. Go back to
these passages, read them again and think about what it means
that God the Son has joined himself to you and you to him. Trusting Christ is not a matter
of the will or some kind of mental assent, mental acceptance of
a religious proposition. There are millions today who
call themselves Christians, who say that they are joined together
with Christ because they've made this decision of their will.
The new birth is something much more significant. It's a whole
life experience and an all new supernatural existence. Our individual life's experiences
as believers in this world are unique. There's no doubt about
that. No two of us have the same experiences. No two of us have the same life. And there's something wonderful
about that, even although we are all joined together as the
body of Christ. We are all different. We all
have different roles and responsibilities and parts to play in the body
of Christ and the life of the church. And that is also true as far
as the apostles were concerned. And yet the blessings that the
Lord gives to one, he gives to all his people. Now perhaps they
come in greater proportions as we have greater needs or as our
needs require. The point I'm making is this,
there are no elite saints. There are no super Christians
in God's family. There's something very common
about us all. We have common temptations and
trials. And to us have been committed
the common doctrines of faith. We have been given the common
salvation. Jude speaks about that. and all
of the Lord's people are heirs of a common inheritance in Christ. All the blessings and benefits
of the Lord that he is speaking of in these chapters, that he
is identifying in this sermon, belong to us all in him. so that the boldest apostle and
the meekest believer are joint heirs together with Christ Jesus. And I want to draw our attention
today to a statement made by the Lord in this context that
ought to thrill our hearts. Christ tells his followers, men
and women, boys and girls of faith, we are not of this world. Or we are no longer of this world,
perhaps, is another way to think about it. We have been made and
we are heavenly people. Paul says in writing to the Ephesians,
we are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, even now, according
to his gift of grace in the new creation. When we are born again,
we are born into another dimension. We are in the world, certainly,
we still have our bodies, we are still living in this world
as men and women and boys and girls, but we are not of the
world. And this is another wonderful
statement from the lips of Jesus Christ. Once we were of this
world, we were born into it, we were tutored by it, we were
under its direction. We followed its paths. We lived
according to its principles. We shared its practices. We were
wedded to its values. And we were subject to its bondage. We were by nature children of
wrath, even as others. Like Adam, the first man, we
were of the earth, earthy. But something has changed. By God's grace, we have been
converted. Some people don't like to speak
about conversion and the new birth. They think that it smacks
of enthusiasm, extremism. But when it's happened, what
a change. What a change. What a transformation is effected
in a soul by God the Holy Spirit when he convicts of sin and enables
a sinner dead in sin to trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. Among many other things, Being
a new creation means that we are no longer of this world. We're a spiritual people. We
are called by Christ and we are born anew to become partakers
of Christ's everlasting life, Christ's eternal life. We are
united to Christ. He is the true vine and we are
the branches. It's what we've been talking
about. We are one with him. The Lord
has been explaining this blow by blow, step by step. to the
disciples as he prepares to take his leave of them to go to the
cross and ultimately in his ascension to go back to his father. He
has been reminding them of this union, this joining that has
taken place. We are one with him and he with
us. And as he is not of this world,
neither are his people, neither is his body. And though we remain
yet for a little while in the world, yet we are not of the
world. We have escaped its rule and
its bondage and its corruption because sin is no longer imputed
to us. Peter tells us, maybe he picked
it up from this very portion that the Lord had spoken in his
company. Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1 verse
4, whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious
promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature. Christ's own nature, having escaped
the corruption that is in the world through lust. This is the
reality. This is the change. This is the
conversion, the transformation that Christ has worked upon us.
The Holy Ghost has brought to us by indwelling us and the Spirit
of God and the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Spirit living within
us. James, James the Less, he's called the
brother of Christ. James tells us that in his little
epistle towards the end of the New Testament, he tells us that
Abraham was called the friend of God because the righteousness of
God was imputed to him. He was the friend of God because
the righteousness of God was imputed to him. He was the friend
of God because he was justified before God. He was the friend
of God because God was reconciled to him. He was reconciled to
God. God was reconciled to him and
consequently we learn that Abraham looked for a city which hath
foundations whose builder and maker is God. You see this was
the significance, this was the consequence of God calling Abraham
his friend. Abraham thereafter looked for
a city which had foundations, whose builder and maker is God,
he wasn't at home in this world anymore. He looked for something
better than this world could offer. He was not content with
the things of this world and of this life and of this earth.
And so too, the Lord Jesus graciously consents to call us friends. Like Abraham, we are friends
of God and Jesus Christ. And like Abraham, we are not
of this world, but we look for a city which has foundations,
whose builder and maker is God. And we desire a better country,
that is unheavenly. Wherefore God is not ashamed
to be called our God, for he hath prepared a city for us. Jesus calls his disciples friends,
not servants. We're not his servants, we're
his friends. And he did so to inform them more fully of his
care and his affection towards them. And he did so before telling
them more particularly of the new found enemies that they would
encounter in the days following his departure back to heaven. So the Lord reinforces all these
positive, transcending, transformational
changes that he is speaking to his disciples about and then
he tells them how these things will be affected by the challenges
and particularly the enemies that they will encounter. So
that once again in these verses before us today we see the Lord
his continuing effort to prepare and comfort and encourage his
disciples for their worldwide ministry and the challenges that
lay ahead for them. James the brother of John, for
example, was put to death early in the apostolic age and the
other disciples were scourged and beaten and mocked and imprisoned. And that was even before they
left Jerusalem and headed out into the world and took the message
to the ends of the earth as they were called to do. It seems clear,
particularly, that the Lord speaks of the hatred his disciples would
encounter from the Jews. The apostles' great offence would
be asserting that Jesus of Nazareth was the long-promised Messiah
come from the Father. Of course, the Father was the
one that the Jews claimed to worship, Jehovah, the Lord God
of Israel. But in fact, what the apostles
here were saying was no more than the Lord had declared. In
fact, it was for this reason that the Lord was crucified. The coming into the world of
the Son of God in the flesh left these Jews, says the Saviour
to his disciples, left them without any excuse for their unbelief.
The prophets had told them for centuries that God was going
to come in the flesh, that a Messiah would be sent. The prophets had foretold that.
Jesus had come and he had revealed himself in the flesh. He had
appeared to these Jews. His message, His miracles, His
works testified of Him, as did the Father Himself testify of
Him. This is my beloved Son, in whom
I am well pleased. Hear ye Him. But the Jews' rejection
of God the Son. betrayed their hatred and their
ignorance, both of God the Father and of God the Son. As they hated
the Father and the Son, the Lord tells his disciples, so they
will hate you who contradict them and believe Christ to be
who he said he was. So that the Lord's followers
should expect opposition and even persecution because of what
we know to be true, because of what we believe. And despite
giving no cause for it, as far as the world is concerned in
our conduct, Christ's body is not to be guilty of wrongdoing
or sinful behavior. We try to live at peace with
all men as we are able. Nevertheless, we must expect
hostility. because it will come for the
sake of Christ. Christ says, if the world hate
you, rather seeing that the world will hate you, you know that
it hated me before it hated you. The Lord's emphasis upon the
Jew's hatred, both of him and his father, shows that the origin
of that antipathy is not due to Christ's works of power and
his miracles of healing. but was due to their deep-seated
rebellion against God. Their rejection of Christ, their
malice against the Father who sent him, was total, it was implacable,
and it ultimately was damning. It originated from their original
opposition and rebellion against God. We call that total depravity. It's a subject for another day.
But that was where this opposition found its source. Right back
in that Adamic nature. They hated both the Father and
the Son without a cause. And it's not a stretch to say
that those who oppose the gospel today, and by the gospel I mean
the gospel of free and sovereign grace, those who oppose free
grace preaching and free grace preachers and free grace believers,
basically the family of God, the body of Christ. They are
the modern equivalents of these religious Jews who hated the
Lord and his disciples back then. They too hate the one who declared,
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion
on whom I will have compassion. They hate the one who said, ye
are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. And again, ye believe not because
ye are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, I know
them, and they follow me. So that there is this antagonism,
this hatred, this opposition. against those who preach free
and sovereign grace. That is the way the world is
set up. That is the way both the religious
systems and the natural man is set up in opposition. Not to
us, not to the church even, but to Christ and to his Father and
consequently to those who follow them. We're reminded that it
is the Lord who chose and called his disciples out of this world. That's the Lord is again mentioning
this. He returns to it so frequently.
The Lord maintains his right freely to call whomsoever he
will according to his grace. No merit of man governs his choice. No flesh, says Paul, will glory
in his sight. If we are His, it is because
He first loved us and chose us to that privileged state and
condition. He appointed us to our various
roles and service. And the ways and the means of
our lives are all according to our Almighty Saviour's wisdom
and goodness. This is the message of the Gospel
of God. It's the message which the Lord
tells his disciples the Holy Spirit will bring to them when
he is gone and the Spirit is sent from the Father. I will
ask the Father and he will send a comforter. This is the message
that the Holy Spirit would bring to the apostles' remembrance
and it is the message that they were to preach. Only the message
of God's sovereign grace humbles the sinner and testifies and
glorifies the Saviour. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit
of truth. He declares the truth. He proceeds
from the Father and he testifies of the Son. And this shows us
the distinct personality of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity
of Persons in the Godhead. The Holy Spirit, however, does
not draw attention to himself just in the same way as the preacher
of Christ should not draw attention to himself. The Holy Spirit draws
attention to the Lord Jesus Christ. He draws attention to the successful
accomplishments of Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection
to life. And that is the pattern that
he leaves with the preachers of the same message. And we note
the consistency of this message. When the Holy Spirit came at
Pentecost, the apostles preached the same gospel of God's grace
by the person and work of Jesus Christ. They preached what the
Jews hated hearing. They preached the same message
that they had crucified Christ for. They preached the sovereign
foreordination of God in the work of salvation. That one whom
God had appointed, ye have by wicked hands taken and crucified. They preached repentance for
sin and faith in Jesus Christ alone. The apostles received
this message from Christ because they had been with him from the
beginning, from the beginning of his ministry, and had had
it confirmed to them by the Spirit of truth. And the true church
has the same apostolic message today. We bear witness to the
same Savior, and we minister the same grace as did the apostles
then. Before we finish today, I just
want to return briefly to the title of this sermon, Not of
the World. And I just want to add a few
thoughts as a kind of postscript to what that teaches us. Here's what I mean. Being not
of this world means that we do not love the things of this world. Our love is focused on higher
things, purer things. We love Christ. We love the revelation
that Christ has given us of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Spirit and all the truths of the Word of God that finds
its focus in Him. And we wish to be more and more
like Him and conformed to Him day by day. That's what it means
to be not of the world. Being not of the world means
discomfort. when the things of this world
crowd in upon us and cause us to lose sight of the Saviour. Let it be a prayer that the Lord
will keep our lives simple and clean and as untangled and free
as possible from the affairs of this fallen world. And being
not of this world, means that the Lord will help us not to
be dazzled by its attractions, but rather whatsoever things
are true. And whatsoever things are honest,
and whatsoever things are just, and whatsoever things are pure,
and whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, Lord,
help us to think on these things. And as we draw near to the end
of life, and that translation, that transfer, that final conversion
into the presence of our Savior. May we learn, being not of the
world, may we learn to hold on but lightly to the things of
this world. May our expectations of that
new day and the dawn of that morning cause us to think more
and more of the beauties to be beheld when we leave this world
behind. Soon they shall be taken away.
May the Lord teach us to live with an eager expectation of
Christ's coming for us and his soon return. What was it? Matlock said, John Matlock. What
is this world to me? This world is not my home. A
scene of pain and grief and woe. When will my saviour come? May
the Lord bless these thoughts to us today. Amen.