The World Hates Jesus

[Read John 7:1-13]

Almost twenty years ago, I had this moment where the Holy Spirit convicted me deeply, brought me to my knees, and worked in me to make a commitment to God. It wasn’t one thing that brought me to this point, but several things that built up over five or six months. Much of this moment centered around the beginning of the Heidelberg Catechism, which says, “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own…” I wrestled for a long time with that line: I am not my own. What does that mean? What does that look like when lived out daily? How do I live like I’m not my own? 

Eventually, I came across this powerful quote from John Calvin that helped me understand it more fully: ”But if we are not our own, but the Lord’s, it is plain both what error is to be shunned, and to what end the actions of our lives ought to be directed. We are not our own; therefore, neither is our own reason or will to rule our acts and counsels. We are not our own; therefore, let us not make it our end to seek what may be agreeable to our carnal nature. We are not our own; therefore, as far as possible, let us forget ourselves and the things that are ours. On the other hand, we are God’s; let us, therefore, live and die to him (Rom. 14:8). We are God’s; therefore, let his wisdom and will preside over all our actions. We are God’s; to him, then, as the only legitimate end, let every part of our life be directed.” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, 3.7.1). Understanding this brought me to a place of making this commitment to God—which sounds a lot like Ruth—“God, to the best of my ability, I will go where you tell me to go; I will do what you tell me to do; I will say what you tell me to say.” 

And yet, that’s easier said than done, isn’t it? It also brings up a very complicated question: How do I know what God is telling me to do, say, or where to go? Or, to put this in a very commonly asked format, “How do I know God’s will?” or “How do I know God’s timing?” People are asking this question all of the time, right? I hear people asking this question when they are thinking about getting married (how do I know God’s timing in this?). I hear people asking this question when looking to quit a job or find another one. I hear people asking this question about moving or staying. To be honest, I think we should probably be asking this question more often than we do, right? If we’re not our own but belong to God, we should always be seeking to be in step with his leading and his will and we should always want to be following him wherever he leads. 

With all of that build-up, in a way, we’re not going to be talking about how to determine the will of God or God’s timing. However, we’re going to be talking about one of the primary things that prevent us from properly and rightly understanding God’s will and God’s timing. There is one thing that consistently blinds us to these realities and prevents us from seeing them accurately. I’ll show you from Romans 12: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:2, ESV). This passage teaches that if we want to discern the will of God we must not be conformed to the world. It is also telling us that if we are conformed to the world—if we are worldly, or like everyone else in the world—we will be blinded to the reality of God’s will and God’s timing. 

And that’s exactly what we’re seeing in our passage this morning. The brothers of Jesus are blinded to God’s will and God’s timing because they have been conformed to the world. That’s why they kinda rebuke Jesus and try to convince him to carry out their strategy. They say, “Leave here and go to Judea, that your disciples also may see the works you are doing. For no one works in secret if he seeks to be known openly. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” (John 7:3–4, ESV). Now, in a lot of ways, this makes sense, right? Jesus’ brothers most likely knew what just happened with Jesus’ disciples—remember they all left him and, most likely, only twelve remained. They saw Jesus losing influence and power and disciples. They were getting frustrated that Jesus kept doing his signs and miracles in obscure places—out in the middle of nowhere. And, it just so happens that there’s a massive feast taking place in Jerusalem—the Feast of Booths—that is going to draw in a MASSIVE crowd of people. For them, it seemed providential. Jesus just had to head to Jerusalem, where there would be a massive crowd of people, do some of his powerful signs and miracles, and Jesus could regain his followers, regain his influence, and show himself to the world. Sounds like a solid strategy, doesn’t it?

Yet, in the midst of this, we read this ominous statement: “For not even his brothers believed in him.” (John 7:5, ESV). That’s our first sign that this was not good advice from Jesus’ brothers. John tells us that Jesus’ brothers were only saying this because they didn’t believe in him either—they didn’t understand who he was. 

And, to add to all of this, they didn’t understand reality. Even though Jesus had been doing these signs and miracles in obscure places, there HAD been large groups of people seeing and experiencing those miracles. Yet, how many were following him? Not many. Even though many people had seen the signs and the miracles, not many had believed and followed Jesus. So, things weren’t really working the way they thought they would work. Jesus’ brothers were blind to the reality of the situation. They don’t understand the opposition to Jesus. They don’t really understand the hardness of people’s hearts. They don’t understand their blindness. 

So, Jesus tells them. He says, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me…” (John 7:6–7, ESV). There’s a lot in this statement from Jesus to his brothers. Notice the way Jesus contrasts himself with his brothers. He says that his time hasn’t come, but their time is always here. He says that the world hates him, but cannot hate them. He’s pointing out to them that they aren’t seeing things rightly—that’s the only reason they would be offering him this advice and this strategy.

So, Jesus makes a few things clear to them. First, he says, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here.” (John 7:6, ESV). Three different words can be used to refer to “time”—hora, chronos, and kairos. And, typically in The Gospel of John, he is using this language when referring to Jesus’ death—his hour—but this isn’t one of those times. This time, Jesus uses the word kairos and that word has different connotations. It has connotations to God’s timing in life—God’s sovereign, appointed timing. Jesus is telling his brothers that it’s not his time to head to the feast. Yet, he also rebukes them by saying, “Your time is always here because you don’t really care about God’s appointed times.”

Then he says, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me…” (John 7:7, ESV). I want to talk about the first part first because that’s an interesting statement. Why can’t the world hate them? When we answer this question by looking through scripture, we get a very clear answer. The world cannot hate them because they are just like the rest of the world—they’ve been conformed to the world. So, it’s impossible for the world to hate them because they are just like the world. That’s also why they don’t care about God’s timing or God’s plans or purposes—they’ve been conformed to the world. That’s why they’re blind. 

Yet Jesus says about himself, “The world…hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.” (John 7:7, ESV). That’s the reality of the situation. Jesus knows full well that if we went to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths and carried out the plans of his brothers—he would be immediately killed because they hate him. We read that right away at the beginning of this passage: “After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews were seeking to kill him.” (John 7:1, ESV). They were seeking to kill him because they hated him. Like we mentioned last week, no marketing plan would work because Jesus was offensive and people hated him and were seeking to kill him. 

And here’s why they hate him: “The world…hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.” (John 7:7, ESV). They hate him because he is a witness against them. They hate him because he tells them that they are sinners and they are living lives that dishonor God and lead to destruction. The world doesn’t want to hear this. The world wants to be affirmed and encouraged and uplifted and told that they are pretty decent people—amazing people—who can keep on doing what they are doing. And Jesus bursts their bubble, showing them that their lives are not pretty decent, their lives are dishonoring God and leading to destruction, and they hate him for it. 

I want to build on this a little bit because I think this makes us uncomfortable. I think many of us have made this mistake over and over and over again. We think, “Well, if people could just see Jesus and hear him, I know they would love him!” Then, when we see people reacting poorly to Jesus, we think maybe we need to portray him differently—in a way that doesn’t cause people to hate him. Maybe we need to make Jesus less offensive. Maybe we need to make Jesus nice. Maybe we need to soften Jesus a little bit. Maybe if we do these things, then people won’t hate Jesus and will come to him and believe in him and flock to him. No. Jesus reminds us that the world will still hate him because he will continue to tell them they are sinners, they need to repent, their lives need to change, and they need a Savior. 

This also has a very personal application to our lives. Elsewhere John says, “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.” (1 John 3:13, ESV). Then, later in John’s gospel, Jesus says, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” (John 15:18–19, ESV). If the world hates Jesus, we should not be surprised when the world also hates us—actually, we should expect the world to hate us. Does that bother you? Does that sound wrong to you? There’s something deep inside us that says, “Wait!?! If we act like Jesus, shouldn’t people love us? And long to be around us? And be drawn to us? And….” No. Not everyone. Don’t be surprised that the world hates you because you are following Jesus who was hated by the world. 

There’s one more very convicting portion to this whole idea. What does it mean if the world does not hate you? What if the world loves you and thinks you’re great and cool? Another way of asking that question—straight from this passage—is, “What if the world loved you as its own?” To follow the logic of this passage, it would mean that you are of the world. It would mean that you’ve become so much like the world that the world cannot hate you. It would mean that you’ve re-worded the Heidelberg Catechism to say, “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I am not my own but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to the world.”

It also probably means you’ve stopped talking about the sinfulness of the world. Remember, that’s why they hated Jesus because he pointed out the evil of their deeds. So, if we’ve stopped talking about the sinfulness of people’s deeds, if we’ve stopped talking about evil and wickedness, then of course people won’t hate us—but that also means we’ve lost the gospel. We cannot preach the gospel unless we’ve convicted people of their sins. John Calvin said, “The Gospel cannot be faithfully preached without summoning the whole world, as guilty, to the judgment seat of God.” (285). 

And, to connect all of this to one of the themes of this sermon, if we’ve become just like the world—if we’ve become conformed to the world—then we will never truly be able to discern the will of God NOR the timing of God. We’ll be just like Jesus’ brothers who were completely out of step with reality and completely blind to God’s plans and purposes, and deaf to God’s call on their life. The more we’re conformed to the world, the less we’ll even care about God’s will and timing because all we care about is what we want and our will and our timing. And the really hard part of all this is, the more we’re conformed to the world, the harder it is to even BEGIN to comprehend God’s will and timing—we become deadened to it and blind to it.

Yet, Jesus is not of this world—and is not conformed to this world—which means he can see and hear God’s leading perfectly. He always knows the Father’s plan, the Father’s will, and the Father’s timing. That’s why he eventually goes to the feast—but he does it according to the Father’s will and timing. We read, “But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private.” (John 7:10, ESV). Jesus goes to the feast when the Father tells him it’s time to go to the feast, not when his brothers tell him to go to the feast. Jesus goes to the feast in the WAY the Father tells him, not in the WAY the brothers tell him. That’s why Jesus goes in private, and not in public. Jesus’ entire life is a life lived by the commitment, “Father, I will go where you tell me to go, do what you tell me to do, say what you tell me to say” AND he’ll do it at the time in which God tells him to do these things. 

Here’s what’s powerful about all of this. Eventually, Jesus WILL reveal himself to the world in Jerusalem but he wouldn’t do it the way his brothers wanted him to reveal himself. No. Jesus wasn’t going to reveal himself to the world through signs and miracles. He would reveal himself to the world through a disgraceful death on the cross and a glorious resurrection from the dead. THAT was the Father’s plan and purpose. THAT was the Father’s timing. That was what Jesus was committed to doing. 

Yet, for those who are owned by the world—conformed to the world—this was all foolishness and failure. For them, they were blinded by the glory of those moments. They didn’t see the Father’s will nor the Father’s timing in all of this. They only saw a fool hanging on a cross. They saw a hated man on a hated cross. 

But, for those who have not been conformed to the world—for those whose minds have been transformed by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit—they see the cross and the resurrection as glory and beauty and life. They see God’s perfect plan and perfect timing. They see God’s kingdom coming and his will being done on earth as it is in heaven. They don’t see foolishness and failure. They see salvation and glory.