Christ Church Southampton

I don’t know how you feel life is going for you right now. Whether things are turning out well or not. But it seems to me, when it comes to all sorts of areas of life, expectations are everything. Wouldn’t you say?

My wife Libby and I are jumping on a plane in a few days time. And Libby’s quite a nervous flyer. So that’s a bit of a prospect.

She’s tried various things to hel.

Squeezing her husband’s hand during takeoff until all circulation ceases.

A decent hit of prescription drugs from the doctor.

But best of all… was a flight she took where the person in the next seat turned out to be an off-duty airline pilot who taught Fear of Flying courses. And she got her own bespoke one-on-one course as the flight went on – for free.

It turned out it was all about expectations.

• Look: you’re going to see the wings moving a fair bit. That’s ok – they’re not going to fall off – they’re designed to have some give so the rest of the plane gets an easier ride – like the suspension on your car.

• There’s going to be a clunking noise below us – that’s nothing sinister; it’s just the landing gear coming up

• You’re going to hear the whining noise of the engine drop, go lower. That’s not the engine failing. It’s just moving out of take-off phase into the next phase

• There could be a bit of a turbulence – some bumps and shakes. It’s not dangerous. It’s just a reminder that the sky isn’t empty. Flying is more like passing through jelly than passing through a vacuum.

• As we come into land, there might be a brief kind of siren noise up front. It’s not an alarm. It’s just the autopilot disengaging for landing.

And so on. You get the idea. These courses you get – they’re just training you in expectations. So you’re not blindsided by a noise or a sight or a sensation. You know what’s coming. You know it’s quite normal. And you to some extent you even know why it’s happening. So you don’t need to be alarmed.

Expectations are everything. And not just for flying, but for life in general. Having expectations set properly is just very helpful – in all departments of life.

And of course that includes our lives as Christian believers.

There are some here today who are very new to Christian things. You’re right at the start of your Christian journey. At this stage, you may even be still looking in from the outside, as it were. And you’ve no idea what might lie ahead. How easy a ride it’s going to be, living as a Christian. You could really do with some expectations being set.

There are others who’ve got a few more miles on the clock, shall we say, but who may well remember the first time things life got very difficult just for living as a Christian. You remember how knocked you were by some treatment you received. Nobody had ever prepared you for that. Why not?

There are others out there who’ve really come unstuck in their spiritual lives. They’ve just given up. Dropped out. Or else they’ve changed the game. What happened? Well, living as a Christian got tricky, and they just weren’t ready for it. It wasn’t in the script for them. So what did they do? They’ve either dropped out the race completely. Or they’ve actually changed their beliefs, re-engineered the Bible, because being seriously at odds with the wider world just wasn’t what they thought they were signing up to when they started their Christian journey. They thought it was going to be an easy ride, and nobody told them otherwise.

You see what I mean when I say: expectations are everything.

Well, Jesus certainly knew that.

We’ve been looking at John’s biography of Jesus here on a Sunday morning. And in particularly the very last decent conversation Jesus had with his inner circle, before his death.

What’s he trying to achieve in this conversation? It’s easy enough to see. He’s preparing them for what lies ahead. Just look, on for example, to the beginning of chapter 16 – and you’ll see what I mean

Verse 1

“All this I have told you so that you will not fall away.”

He doesn’t want them to give up spiritually.

Why might they give up? Well, verse 2:

2 They will put you out of the synagogue;

Remember the first followers of Jesus were all Jews. But Jesus is warning they’re going to be expelled from their religious communities.

And not just that. Read on.

in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God.

Well, that’s good to know, isn’t it?

By the way, Jesus wasn’t being melodramatic here. As far as we know, all but one of those disciples Jesus was speaking to would go on to meet a violent death because of their faith. And countless other Christians since then have followed the same path.

So Jesus wants their expectations to be calibrated well.

Verse 4

4 I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them.

Do you see? This is Jesus, the night before he himself is going to be killed, wanting to get his followers ready for what’s in store for them.

And John, the one disciple of the twelve who was merely exiled rather than killed, wrote down these words of Jesus so that we readers – in our turn – might be ready for what lies ahead

It’s going to be tough! That’s the truth of the matter.

But why? Why can’t we expect an easy ride as we live out our faith from day to day? What’s driving this opposition, this persecution?

That’s the question Jesus seems to be taking on in today’s passage, and there seem to be two sides to his answer which are sort of intertwined through what he says.

The first is: if you’re living an authentic Christian life, you will be walking in step with a suffering saviour.

We get mistreated, because Jesus did.

Back to verse 18 of chapter 15.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”

Which is certainly true, when you think about it. I mean you flick back through this biography of Jesus, and you see all he had to do to start earning disapproval was kind-hearted healings on the wrong day of the week. Chapter 5 verse 16.

because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.

That’s all it took!

But that’s just the first mention of opposition. It gets worse from there. By the beginning of chapter 7, they’re looking for a way to kill him.

The world Jesus inhabited hated him. And because a follower of Jesus is by definition associating with Jesus, they can expect the very same treatment.

So verse 20

20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’[b] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also.

I suppose it’s true of anyone who identifies with a controversial figure. Could be President Trump. Could be Martin Luther King. Benjamin Netanyahu or JK Rowling. You praise any of them on your Twitter feed and you open yourself up to all comers.

Of course it’s not actually rational, the way Jesus was treated. Look down at verse 25.

But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’[c]

I mean, what exactly did Jesus do - apart from heal people, help people, teach people, love people and die for people. Hate doesn’t seem the most obvious response, does it?

And yet that’s what came his way. And it’s what has come the way of his followers down the years. With seemingly just the same irrationality.

I mean sure, Christians have done some stupid and shameful things over the years. No doubt about that.

But they’ve also started schools, set up hospitals, founded orphanages. They got the civil rights movement up and running. They led the charge to end Apartheid. Closer to home, they’ve campaigned successfully for prison reform and an end to the slave trade and better housing conditions. They’ve funded charities for the poor and the under-privileged and the homeless: Oxfam, Samaritans, RSPCA, Salvation Army, Boy Scouts, Girl Guides – all Christian foundations.

Christians even set up any number of sports teams like Southampton Football Club.

Christians today run lunch clubs for schoolkids, they get food to those sleeping rough. And on it goes.

What exactly is there to take exception to here?

It’s absurd. It’s irrational. ‘They hated me without reason’. But it’s reality.

The world often does give Christians a hard time, just as it did for Jesus.

And it was always going to be the case.

Do you remember that time when Jesus spoke about the suffering he knew he was walking into? Dying on a cross. But then, right after that, it didn’t take him long to turn the spotlight on his followers.

23 Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.

You see the logic – it’s just the same as what Jesus says here. It’s like master, like servant.

Now I know that death and martyrdom for our faith doesn’t particularly seem to be on the cards for most of us here in Britain just at the moment. But that’s only because of our history: the dominant culture here still bears trace elements of Christian freedom and tolerance.

But it’s certainly not the same in other parts of the world. I assume we’re all aware that in Nigeria and China and various parts of the Middle East, violent persecution of Christians is normal. It’s part of life.

But then again, why wouldn’t it be for the servants, when that’s how it was for the master?

The earliest account we have of a martyrdom outside the Bible is that of a man called Polycarp. He was the Bishop of Smyrna in modern day Turkey.

He was arrested aged 86 for not joining in with the worship of Roman gods. And he came up against a Roman proconsul who found himself almost embarrassed at dealing with such an old man. So the proconsul tried everything to just let him go. Just say the words, and even now I’ll let you go. That was the gist.

‘Reproach Christ and I will set you free’ - he pleaded.

But Polycarp’s response was striking. “86 years have I have served him,” Polycarp declared, “and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior?”

So the proconsul changed tack and went for threats.

“I have wild animals here” he said. “I will throw you to them if you do not repent.”

“Call them,” Polycarp replied. “It is unthinkable for me to repent from what is good to turn to what is evil.”

“If you despise the animals, I will have you burned.” Said the Proconsul.

“You threaten me with fire which burns for an hour, and is then extinguished, but you know nothing of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly. Why are you waiting? Bring on whatever you want.”

And so, the fire was prepared, And Polycarp prayed loudly:

O Lord God Almighty, the Father of your beloved and blessed Son Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the knowledge of you, the God of angels, powers and every creature, and of all the righteous who live before you, I give you thanks that you count me worthy to be numbered among your martyrs, sharing the cup of Christ…’

And he was executed.

I tell that story in part because I personally have found it so inspiring over the years. And I ask myself: if and when the time comes for me suffer for my master, just for being his faitful servant, will I be up to the job? Will I be ready and willing to share in the suffering of the one I serve?

And I wonder if you might ask yourself the same thing, when your time comes.

This is why the Christian life is no easy ride. It’s because a servant is not greater than his master. We take the brunt of what is thrown at us, because we are walking in step with a suffering saviour.

So that’s one of the two threads in Jesus’ comments here about why we face hardship.

Here’s the second. It’s that as we live wholeheartedly for Jesus, we are walking away from a wayward world.

Just a clarification before we get into this. When John talks about the world, it’s really a kind of shorthand for ‘all of humanity that stands against God and his son Jesus’. That’s what he’s talking about. So back in chapter 1, we’re told.

9 The true light – that’s the Word made flesh… the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

You see that? The world is code for the mass of humanity who don’t really want anything to do with the true God. That’s why I’ve used that expression a ‘wayward world’.

Now, remember the question on the table. ‘Why do Christians face opposition?’ Well look at what Jesus says to that in verse 19.

19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

This is just human behaviour 101, isn’t it? People just don’t trust what is ‘other’.

We build our group identities and we’re suspicious at the very least - possibly downright hostile – to those who don’t conform, who get their identity somewhere else. It’s Pompey and Saints. It’s Montagues and Capulets. It’s Palestinians and Jews. Hutus and Tutsis. Bleeding-heart liberals and gun-toting, redneck conservatives.

You don’t fit into the dominant group in this or that segment of society, and you’re just dodgy. And in fact threatening. And that earns you a hard time.

That’s what we are. It’s what every genuine Christian believer is in the world. We just don’t fit. And that earns us a hard time. And the more distinctive we are, the harder the time is.

And you may have seen this in your own experience in reverse. I wonder if you can think of a time when you were a bit – shall we say - ‘off the boil’ as a Christian. You were actually – if you’re honest – just running along with the world for a time. Sharing the priorities of the world. The idols of the world. Pleasure, money, stuff, security, reputation, career – whatever. That was you for a period. And as you think about that time, you realise: you didn’t really get much stick from the world in that period. At all.

But then why would you? You were indistinguishable from it. ‘If you belonged to the world it would love you as its own’ – that was you.

It’s only as you’ve got more consistent in your Christian living, more courageously distinctive, more world-denying, that you felt the heat, the alienation, the hostility.

but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

The thing is, though: it’s not just that we’re different. It’s that when we stand for Jesus, we’re standing for one who exposes the world for what it really is. Verse 21.

21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me.

They don’t actually know God!

Verse 22.

22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24 If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father.

Now what’s Jesus saying here? I think what he’s saying is this:

It’s possible to kid yourself and everyone else, that you know God, when you can’t actually see him. You can maybe think you’re worshipping God, even if the one you worship is really a distortion of the true God. You can kid yourself. Because God is out of sight.

But that’s going to change when the actual true God allows himself to be heard and seen in the flesh on earth. Because now, if the true God is showing himself over here in the person of Jesus, and the world wants nothing to do with that - they just keep on worshipping that god over there, living in accordance with what that god says, then it’s now abundantly clear that this is just a god of their own invention, and that living for that god is just plain sin. Because the true God is right here.

Jesus’ appearance exposes that they never knew the true God. And when the followers of Jesus – people like us – point to Jesus, it just rubs it in even more.

The world just doesn’t know God. In effect the world hates God. And so it hates Jesus who is the true God. And it hates the followers of Jesus who prize Jesus so greatly.

We’re laying bare the reality of this wayward world – and walking away from it.

This is why living as a Christian in the context of an unbelieving world, is not plain sailing.

Because it’s not, is it? Plain sailing.

It may be subtle, but every now and then it comes out. Family members, or people we work with, or slightly frosty friends belittle us and mock us and needle us and it just keeps going, there in the background, on and on, and after a while we get to the point of questioning ourselves. Is it worth it? Is it true? Am I being foolish believing this? Wouldn’t it be better just to jack it all in? Give up?

I was at the dentist a week or two ago. And you know what it’s like at the dentist – it’s just one big upselling operation. They get you in that chair. They get their implements in your mouth, and now they’ve got you where they want you, they start to turn the screws.

It was particularly blatant this time, I thought.

Orlando – can I call you that? About your teeth. Have you ever thought about getting them – well – straight. Because we can help with that.

‘Er no – not really’ I said. ‘Should I be thinking about it?’

‘Well it is a bit of an investment I suppose. But I’m sure people like to see you smile. And – well – if you’re happy with your smile, I suppose that’s all that really matters.’

‘Mmm’, I said, which was about all I could say given all the hardware in my mouth.

But then about 3 minutes later, she pipes up again.

‘Orlando, just another thought. The colour of your teeth. Again if that’s something you’re concerned about, we can help with that too. But obviously, if you’re happy, that’s all that matters.’

I said: ‘Oh ok – what’s involved?’

‘Oh it’s just whitening gels. Very straightforward and inexpensive. £520.’

And I said ‘£520? Who exactly is helping who here?’

I didn’t actually say that; I just thought it.

And then I said: ‘you got any more comments where those came from/ I mean now you’ve got me down, do you want to kick me any more?’

Actually I didn’t say that either, out loud.

But you know, all the way home, I kept looking at my teeth in the rear view mirror. Doubting myself, questioning myself, wondering if I was causing optical pain and anguish to anyone who was unfortunate enough to see me smile!’

Because that’s what happens when people needle you for long enough.

Happens as a patient at the dentist. At least, my dentist. And it happens as a Christian in the world….

Now that’s not to say that all the stick we might get from others is necessarily persecution for living as a Christian.

If people give you a hard time, it might be because you’re just inept, rude, unpleasant, arrogant, unkind, tactless, socially awkward – generally antisocial. So it might be worth at least checking in with friends who know you and will be straight with you to see if that might be at least part of what’s going on. That you’re actually just a bit of a pain in the neck.

And it’s not the case that we should court persecution. Go out of our way to provoke it. And maybe even play it up a bit. Develop a persecution complex.

But it should be normal as a Christian to feel at odds with the world around, like you’re operating on a different wavelength, with different values. It should feel a bit awkward. And if you don’t particularly feel that way, if you feel really quite comfortable, at ease with the world around, then the question has to be asked: are you really wholeheartedly following Jesus?

So let me come back to where we started. And that question of expectations.

What do you expect the reality of living as a Christian will be? Are you prepared for the cost?

Be in no doubt: that cost is worth it. The prize for the suffering of Jesus was to be able to prepare our heavenly inheritance. The prize for our suffering as his servants is to lay claim to that inheritance.

So are we ready to face what comes from being servants of the master?