words about the WORD - Brad McBee - First Christian Church
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 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.” -John 15:18-19 (NIV)
Like many people in the United States and throughout the world for that matter, I was shocked by the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Right before our eyes, on a college campus here in the United States, this devoted Christian, husband, and father of two young children, was murdered for sharing not just his viewpoint, but a worldview founded on Biblical principles. The Christian worldview that Charlie upheld, flies right in the face of the cultural worldview held by so many in our nation and in the wider world. As shocked as I was, I wasn’t surprised. When you go against the culture of the world, the world fights back. Charlie went against the culture, and he paid the ultimate price for standing up for his beliefs and for Biblical values. He was murdered.
Jesus warned the disciples that they would be hated for proclaiming the Gospel message; Just as he was hated first and that hatred would ultimately lead to Jesus’ assassination, his murder, on the cross. Those disciples would also experience the cost of confronting the world’s values with Godly truth. Christian tradition tells us that all of them, except John, would also be assassinated, murdered for proclaiming the Gospel. John alone lived to an old age, dying a natural death, despite many attempts on his life. He suffered unbelievable abuse and scorn, all because he refused to deny the truth of the Gospel.
What was the truth of the Gospel that so enraged the world that led to the death of Jesus, most of the disciples, and countless Christians down through the ages, including Charlie Kirk? The Gospel message comes down to this: God loves all people and desires to save them from the destruction they are bringing upon themselves. That part of the Gospel message, that God is a God of love, most of the world doesn’t have a problem with. It is the next part of the Gospel message that the world hates, that in order to be saved we must repent of our sins and turn to Jesus’ atoning action on the Cross. It is only through the repentance of sin and the blood of Jesus on the Cross, that we are saved.
The rub is this, the world wants God’s love but not God’s moral commandments. The world wants to go on doing whatever it wants to do. The Bible calls such people children not of God, but of the devil. John, who as I said earlier, lived a long life and was safeguarded in this world by God for a purpose. The purpose, I believe, was to keep witnessing to the truth. In his later years John would write this, “The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister (1 John 3:8-10 NIV).
This world will always hate those who stand up for the Gospel, those who stand up for truth. This should not surprise us because it first hated Jesus.
Peace, Blessings, and Love,
Pastor Brad McBee, First Christian Church
