Sermon for Sunday, May 19, 2024

HELP! 

John 15:20- 16:7

John 15:20-27 New International Version

20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 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 sin23 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. 25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

John 16:1-7 New International Version

16 “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to GodThey will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

When you are following the Way of God, under conviction of the  Advocate Holy Spirit, and someone  treats you unkind, or claims to be a follower of Jesus but wants to exclude and hate, recognize that they do not know God!  They instead hate you, which means they hate Jesus, they hate the Father, and they hate the Holy Spirit!  They are of the WRONG spirit! 

Matthew 24:6–15 (NLT): 6 And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. 7 Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world. 8 But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come.

9 “Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers. 10 And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. 11 And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. 12 Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 14 And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come.

Isaiah  (RSV): Chapter 53

1 Who has believed what we have heard?

      And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?

      2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,

      and like a root out of dry ground;

      he had no form or comeliness that we should look at him,

      and no beauty that we should desire him.

      3 He was despised and rejected by men;

      a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;

      and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised,

      and we esteemed him not.

      4 Surely he has borne our griefs

      and carried our sorrows;

      yet we esteemed him stricken,

      smitten by God, and afflicted.

      5 But he was wounded for our transgressions,

      he was bruised for our iniquities;

      upon him was the chastisement that made us whole,

      and with his stripes we are healed.

      6 All we like sheep have gone astray;

      we have turned every one to his own way;

      and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

      7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

      yet he opened not his mouth;

      like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

      and like a sheep that before its shearers is dumb,

      so he opened not his mouth.

      8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away;

      and as for his generation, who considered

      that he was cut off out of the land of the living,

      stricken for the transgression of my people?

      9 And they made his grave with the wicked

      and with a rich man in his death,

      although he had done no violence,

      and there was no deceit in his mouth.

      10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him;

      he has put him to grief;

      when he makes himself an offering for sin,

      he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days;

      the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand;

      11 he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied;

      by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant,

      make many to be accounted righteous;

      and he shall bear their iniquities.

      12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great,

      and he shall divide the spoil with the strong;

      because he poured out his soul to death,

      and was numbered with the transgressors;

      yet he bore the sin of many,

      and made intercession for the transgressors.

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