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Welcome to day five of our look together through John chapter 15, this amazing
chapter of the Bible. He's just talking to us as his followers about what to do,
about abiding him, remaining in him, trusting in him, and then at the end of the
chapter, what to do when we face rejection. Yesterday we looked at four things
to do in the face of rejection.

Don't take it personally, number one. Number two, don't try to fit in. Number
three, don't try to avoid all rejection.

And number four, remember that rejection is not universal. There are others who
are accepting. Today we're going to look at four more things that Jesus tells us
to do when we face rejection or people that are rejecting the faith at the end
of this chapter.

Let me read for you verses 21 to 24. Jesus says, "They will treat you this way
because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come
and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin.

Now however, they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my Father
as well. If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be
guilty of sin.

But now they've seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my
Father. " When you hear stories of Christians being persecuted, of Christians
facing torture or even death for their faith, how do those stories make you
feel? I don't know about you, but anger is my first and natural response, but
it's not the response that Jesus taught us.

It's not the response that Jesus exemplified for us, and it's not the response
that because of his power, he can empower us to have in our lives. And only
through his power can I respond in a different way. What's the fifth thing to
learn about how to handle rejection?

The fifth thing is you respond with compassion. And the only way to do that is
through the compassion of Jesus. Jesus, who when they were crucifying him on the
cross said, "Father, forgive them.

" That kind of compassion. Jesus here says, "They don't know the Father. That's
why they act like this.

" That's a moment of compassion. Jesus here says, "They have no excuse for their
sin. That's a cause for compassion.

No excuse. " The literal meaning there is they have no cloak to hide behind.
Now, Jesus isn't here saying that they wouldn't have to pay for their sins when
he says, "It would not be guilty of sin if I hadn't come.

" He's saying they wouldn't have known their guilt. But now that I have come,
they know their guilt and they have absolutely no excuse. And that's a cause for
compassion.

Jesus says in verse 22, "Through my words that I spoke to them. " And in verse
24, "Through my works, the miracles that I showed, I have helped people to see
that they can trust in me. " What's the compassion behind this?

Jesus is saying to us here that persecution, whenever you're rejected for your
faith, it is someone shouting at you, "I don't know Jesus. I don't want to know
Jesus. " And if they don't get to know Jesus, they're going to spend eternity
separated from God.

And that, that's a cause for compassion. Jesus says, "This all happens because
of my name. They will treat you this way because of my name.

" As I teach and work in the name of Jesus, the truth is people are responding
to Jesus. They're not responding to you. They're not responding to me so much as
they're responding to the powerful name, the person for whom I'm living, the one
to whom I'm pointing.

Now I can make the response focus more on myself by being prideful or fearful,
but my job is to get out of the way as much as possible so that the response is
about Jesus. It's his name that they're responding to. Getting out of the way
doesn't mean that I become someone other than myself or not myself.

It just means I take the focus off of myself. I focus on him. It's his name.

It's Jesus. It's the focus of everything here. What do I do when somebody's
rejecting Jesus in me, rejecting Jesus, and I see it happening?

Number six, Jesus says, "Don't look for the reason. Don't look for the reason. "
John 15, 25, Jesus says this, "But this is to fulfill what is written in their
law.

They hated me without reason. " Jesus is telling us here that this persecution
is no surprise to God. In fact, it even fulfills the word in the case of those
who are persecuting him.

He says they're doing it without a reason. We often think, "If I could just
figure out the reason, then I could help this person to never do this again. "
Now, let me be clear here.

The Bible does tell us to give an answer for our faith, a reasoned answer for
our faith. It does tell us to give people reasons to believe and the answers
that they need. I don't want you to think that we shouldn't give reasonable
answers for our faith.

But the Bible also tells us that some hate Jesus with no real reason. It's just
a feeling in their gut. And if you try to reason it out with them, you're never
going to get anywhere.

So don't even try to figure out the reason. The reason is they don't know
Christ. The reason is they're separated from God.

The reason is, well, you can't figure out the reason. And so they'll make all
kinds of charges against Jesus, against you, that just aren't true. They are
unreasonable because they are unreasoning.

Here's what people believed about believers when John was written. They believed
that they wanted to overthrow the government. They believed that they were
cannibals.

Can you believe that? That's what they believed. They believed that they were
immoral, they were arsonists, that they had a faith that ruined families.

Now, obviously, none of that is true. History tells us that. The Bible tells us
that.

But people made up reasons not to believe. You see, if I want to not believe in
Jesus because I want to keep living the lifestyle that I'm living now, I'll make
up all kinds of reasons not to believe. And to try to reason that out is just a
frustrating experience.

So don't try to figure out the reason. Give people reasoned answers, but don't
try to figure out the reason they reject. There is, in these verses, a seventh,
an exciting thing to do in the face of someone rejecting Jesus.

We've talked about some of the maybe more negative aspects of this. Don't take
it personally. Don't try to figure out the reason.

But I love this seventh one because it turns to the positive. John 15, verses 26
and 27, "When the counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the
spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. And you
also must testify, for you've been with me from the beginning.

" He's talking about here the beginning of his public ministry. And he says,
"Those of you who've been with me from the beginning, when the counselor comes,
the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, he's going to testify, and so you testify also. "
You see, the seventh thing I do in the face of rejection is I trust the Holy
Spirit.

I'm not in this alone. I'm not trying to convince them on my own or make it
better on my own or cause them not to reject on my own. God's Spirit is working
in their lives.

And so I can trust the work of God's Spirit. I see it happen so many times when
I speak, when I talk to people about God. They'll come up to me afterwards and
they'll say, "Wow, it was like you were talking right to me.

Like you and I were the only people in the room. " And they're saying it as if I
have some skill as a communicator that caused that to happen. There is no
communicator in the universe that's skilled enough to cause that to happen.

It's not a matter of skill. It's a matter of Spirit. God's Spirit.

You see, I realize what's happening then is it's not me speaking to the person
any longer. It's God's Spirit taking the words, God's words, and he's speaking
to the person. It's God's Spirit that ends up convincing me to believe in the
end.

And when I testify about my faith, when I tell other people about the reality of
Jesus in my life, I'm never alone. God's Spirit is always there. The counselor,
remember this word counselor is the word paracletos, someone who's called on to
help in time of desperate need.

If you have someone that you desperately want to come to know Christ, you
testify, but you also lean on, you trust in the Holy Spirit. And we're going to
talk more about the witness of the Spirit and exactly how that works when we get
to chapter 16. But here as we talk about what to do in the face of rejection,
when you feel rejection for your faith, do not face it alone.

Trust the Holy Spirit. And then there's an eighth thing to do. We just read it
in verses 26 and 27.

The eighth thing you do when you face rejection for your faith is you keep
talking about your faith. The eighth thing you do is you tell the truth about
Jesus. You also must testify.

At the end of all these words about rejection, Jesus says in the end, keep
testifying. This word testify is an imperative, it's a command. Times of
persecution, Jesus is saying here, don't miss this.

Times of persecution are also times of proclamation. And a persecution without a
clear witness, it's a wasted persecution. There's this partnership between the
Holy Spirit's testimony and your testimony.

And when you're rejected for the faith, for your trust in Jesus, and in that
moment you clearly let other people know, I'm still trusting Jesus, there is no
greater testimony. There's no testimony that's going to change more people.
People will wake up and notice what's happening in your life they would have
never noticed otherwise.

If you're passed over for a promotion because you have faith in Christ, and you
say to a fellow worker, yeah, I'm disappointed, I wasn't promoted, but I'm still
trusting Christ, I know he's going to take care of me. Even though I didn't get
the promotion that I expected, they're going to think there's something
different about this person. There's something different in their life, and I
want that in my life.

Notice that these verses say that the Spirit will testify, and so should you. It
takes both, the Spirit and you. And because of that testimony, God is at work in
people's lives.

The Bible tells us here in this last part of John chapter 15 that we are going
to face sometimes rejection for our faith. If you have a dream of settling down
in this world, in this world's system with your faith, loved and liked by all,
no resistance, perfect world, get rid of that dream and replace it with the
dream of testimony even amidst persecution, even amidst rejection, testimony
that lets people know in a real world that God can make a real difference. And
testimony, testimony that's going to cause some to wake up and to see the light.

Testimony that's going to cause some to make a decision for eternity in their
relationship with Jesus Christ. You see, we can respond to this world's hatred
in three ways, and the first two do not work. Jesus tells us they don't work.

We can respond to the world's hatred, the hatred of this world system for those
of us who are believers in Christ by blending in, trying to look like the world,
but you can't. You're light, you're salt. You can't look like what you're not.

You can respond to this world hatred by fighting back, by using their same
methods, but what benefit is that? What hope is there there? What faith is there
there for them?

You can respond by blending in, by fighting back, but Jesus says the way I want
you to respond is by compassionately telling the truth. Keep telling the truth
about me, because that's what's going to change lives. That's what's going to
change lives for eternity.

As we come to the end of our look through John chapter 15, let's talk to God
about the truths we've learned together in this chapter from Jesus. As you talk
to the Lord today, just say, "Jesus, I say it again, what we said at the
beginning of this chapter, I am a branch, a branch that abides in the vine, a
branch that abides through the word in love and joy, a branch that will face
rejection, not from Jesus, but from the world system, but a branch, a branch
that will bear fruit as I abide in you, the fruit of loving Jesus, of loving one
another, of loving the world. So Jesus, today, I make a fresh commitment to you,
to love you.

Show me how. Show me what to do. Show me who to love today.

In your name, Amen. Join us next week as we continue our study of the Gospel of
John. We'll be looking together at John chapter 16.