John #36: Between World and Spirit (John 15:18-16:15 - a podcast by Rob Woodrum & Others

I heard someone tell a story from his boot-camp days in the military. He said that one day a new recruit got off the bus with water skis and a fishing rod under his arms. Apparently, the recruiting officer told him that the boot camp was on an island (which was true), and that people could ski and fish (which was also true, if by “people” he didn’t mean the recruit, but civilians if they were allowed on the island). The recruit soon found out that skiing and fishing were not on his drill instructor’s agenda – and had he known what really awaited him on that island, he never would have gone.

Sometimes people evangelize people like that recruiter – promising that if we follow Jesus we’ll have out best life now, with plenty of fun and nary a tear….but Jesus didn’t play those kinds of games with us. He wanted us to be prepared for what a life of following him would mean.

We’re going to be reading John 15:18-16:15 this Sunday and Jesus will make just that sort of warning.

The book of Acts plays out Jesus’ prediction here – and the first 300 years of the church’s history is one of cyclical persecution. To this day you can track how Christians are persecuted and hated all over the world through organizations like Voice of the Martyrs, so I think its safe to say that Jesus wasn’t being paranoid in his predictions.

In all fairness, we have to acknowledge the many times in history that the church has been guilty of promoting it’s own brand of persecution against people of other religions or those they have deemed sinners. There is no excuse for it and it is a blight on our history, all we can do is mourn such folly. The Gospel is the final victim of that sort of stupidity.

Nevertheless, the church’s mistakes don’t diminish the reality of social conflict that comes with following Jesus – and it was sort of promised to us by him.

In this passage, in light of the world’s system rejecting the gospel, ch 15:26-27 tells us God’s response and what our intended response is supposed to be. Is it back out of the world? Is it give up and leave them to themselves? Is it to get angry and fight back? What is the response of God and his church to rejection and hatred?

Chapter 16 outlines how the Holy Spirit will interact with this world and with us.  Do you get the picture of human ingenuity spreading the gospel… or something else? What picture do you see? Who does Jesus say will lead us into all truth?  How would you understand your role, or the church’s role in this activity of God’s Spirit?

I hope this will be a challenging, albeit sobering study this Sunday! Hope to see you there!

Click here for a pdf of the teaching slideshow.

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