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Mar 12, 2023

John - The Road Ahead (click for resources)

Passage: John 15:18-16:5

Speaker: Sam Hodge

Series: John: Come and See

Category: Grace Brevard

Keywords: persecution, world, trouble

Christ Jesus exemplifies his calling for the disciples to abide in him through both his warnings and encouragements about the road ahead. In Jesus’ sobering words, He gives us a map of the road that He is calling us to walk as His followers but promises to sustain us through all of the trials and temptations that lie ahead.

Theme: 
Christ Jesus exemplifies his calling for the disciples to abide in him through both his warnings and encouragements about the road ahead. In Jesus’ sobering words, He gives us a map of the road that He is calling us to walk as His followers but promises to sustain us through all of the trials and temptations that lie ahead.

Discussion Questions

  • What does persecution look like for Christians in the world today?
  • What does Jesus mean when he says, “the world hates you”?
  • How did the world hate Jesus?
  • What perspective does this give us on Jesus’ call to not only love our friends but to love our enemies as well?
  • What is it about the message of the gospel that is subversive to the culture of the world around us?
  • Jesus warns about the trials ahead and the temptations ahead as well...What are examples of trials that you have experienced in your own life?
  • How do you get pulled into the hatred of the world?
  • How does Jesus promise to sustain us amidst our trials?
  • What does that look like?
  • How have you experienced it?
  • How does Jesus promise to redeem us from our temptations?
  • How have you experienced this?
  • What are areas of your life where you most easily get pulled into feeling hatred of this world?
  • How does that come out of you (yell, fight...?)?

CENTRAL PASSAGE: John 15:18 - 16:4 
18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 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. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

16:1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.